Thornback cowfish
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The thornback cowfish has a body encased in hard, bony armor.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Thornback cowfish
- Scientific name
- Lactoria fornasini
- Japanese name
- シマウミスズメ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Tetraodontiformes
- Family
- Ostraciidae
- Genus
- Lactoria
Where the name “Thornback cowfish” comes from
Its scientific name honors Fornasini, a naturalist who worked in Mozambique.
Museums Victoria / OzFishNetIt lives over a wide area, from the seas of southern Japan to Southeast Asian islands, the coasts of Australia and the southeastern coast of Africa.
How the Thornback cowfish lives
It lives in sandy, rubble-strewn and weedy areas near reefs. It often blows water onto the seabed to uncover and eat small invertebrates.
Museums Victoria / OzFishNetBasic data
- Range
- Izu Islands, Ogasawara Islands, Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, central Pacific, Australian coast, southeastern African coast, and elsewhere
Where the Thornback cowfish 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
- シマウミスズメ
- 简体中文
- 富纳角箱鲀
- 繁體中文
- 福氏角箱魨
- 한국어
- 줄무늬뿔복
- Español
- Pez vaca espinoso
- Français
- Poisson-vache à épine dorsale
- Deutsch
- Dornrücken-Kofferfisch
- Português (Brasil)
- Peixe-vaca-de-dorso-espinhoso
- Italiano
- Pesce scatola cornuto spinoso
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 — シマウミスズメChecked: 2026-11-04
- Australian Museum — Thornback Cowfish, Lactoria fornasini (Bianconi, 1846)Checked: 2026-11-07
- Museums Victoria / OzFishNet — Thornback Cowfish, Lactoria fornasini (Bianconi 1846)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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