Yellow boxfish

Amazing fact

The yellow boxfish has a body enclosed in a hard, box-like shell made of bony plates.

Nausicaá

Yellow boxfish in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

The yellow boxfish has a body enclosed in a hard, box-like shell made of bony plates.

SourceNausicaá — Yellow Boxfish

THE REAL WORLD

The real Yellow boxfish

Scientific name: Ostracion cubicus
Japanese name: ミナミハコフグ
Group: Ocean animals

Order: Tetraodontiformes
Family: Ostraciidae
Genus: Ostracion

Facts about the real animal.

The black spots on young fish fade away as they grow.

鳥羽水族館 — ミナミハコフグ

As they grow, white or blue spots appear.

鳥羽水族館 — ミナミハコフグ

It lives from the seas south of Wakayama to the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

鳥羽水族館 — ミナミハコフグ

How the Yellow boxfish lives

It lives alone on coral reefs. It eats algae, sponges and small crustaceans, among other foods. It can use its fins to swim backward and turn on the spot. It releases its eggs into the current.

ニフレル Nausicaá

Basic data

Range: South of and including Wakayama Prefecture, Indo-Pacific

鳥羽水族館

Where the Yellow boxfish has been recorded

Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF

Where it livesJapan World oceans Ocean

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: ミナミハコフグ
简体中文: 粒突箱鲀
繁體中文: 粒突箱魨
한국어: 노랑거북복
Español: Cofre Amarillo
Français: Poisson-Coffre Jaune
Deutsch: Gelbbrauner Kofferfisch
Português (Brasil): Peixe-cofre-amarelo
Italiano: Pesce scatola giallo
العربية: سمكة الصندوق الصفراء
Русский: Кузовок-кубик
Türkçe: Sarı Kutu Balığı
ไทย: ปลาปักเป้ากล่องเหลืองลายจุดดำ

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 — ミナミハコフグChecked: 2026-11-04
Nausicaá — Yellow BoxfishChecked: 2026-11-07
ニフレル — ミナミハコフグ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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