Birdbeak burrfish
Amazing fact
Young birdbeak burrfish are covered in black spots and live in open water.
Museums Victoria / OzFishNet
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Young birdbeak burrfish are covered in black spots and live in open water.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Birdbeak burrfish
- Scientific name
- Cyclichthys orbicularis
- Japanese name
- メイタイシガキフグ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Tetraodontiformes
- Family
- Diodontidae
- Genus
- Cyclichthys
It lives in seas south of Sado Island and the Izu Islands, across the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific, and in the southeastern Atlantic.
A small pufferfish that looks like a porcupinefish; the short spines all over its body always stand up.
How the Birdbeak burrfish lives
It is active at night. It is thought to eat hard-shelled invertebrates. It usually lives on sandy and muddy bottoms of clear, sheltered reefs.
Museums Victoria / OzFishNetBasic data
- Range
- South of Sado and Izu Islands, Indo-West Pacific, and southeastern Atlantic
Where the Birdbeak burrfish has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- メイタイシガキフグ
- 简体中文
- 眶棘短圆刺鲀
- 繁體中文
- 圓點圓刺魨
- Français
- Poisson porc-épic orbiculaire
- Deutsch
- Kurzstachel-Igelfisch
- Português (Brasil)
- Baiacu-de-espinho-orbicular
- Italiano
- Pesce istrice spine corte
- Tiếng Việt
- Cá nóc gai thô dài
- Русский
- Птичий циклихт
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — メイタイシガキフグChecked: 2026-11-04
- Museums Victoria / OzFishNet — Shortspine Porcupinefish, Cyclichthys orbicularis (Bloch 1785)Checked: 2026-11-07
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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