Nature Spiny Puffer: The Amazing Stomach of the Spiny Puffer(The BalloonFish)

It is slow,it is not fast and to many people it is definitely not pretty. But a careful study of its stomach will leave you
amazed, What a Stomach it Has! What are we talking about? it is the BallonFish Known as the spiny puffer and the Long-Spine
Porcupinefish. When this fish is threatened, this creature "undergoes a Remarkable transformation" says Natural History magazine.
its body, which grows about 50 centimeters in lenght swells "until the fish is three times its usual size and has become rigid,
near perfect sphere covered in spiky armor-not a good design for swimming but decidedly discouraging to attackers.

the fish inflates its size by pumping water into its stomach, the stomach then expands to nearly a hundred times the
normal volume! the puffer accomplishes this amazing feat because of a simple, elegant concept-pleats.

 

In fact,the puffers stomach is made up of pleats within pleats, explains Natural History. The largest ones are about
three millimeters wide " with yet smaller folds inside one, and so on, down to pleats so tiny that they can be seen
only through a microscope.

Read also: Nature The Coconut: One Of The Most Useful Nuts on Earth


if the stomach is to expand, then the skin is also to expand with the stomach. now to accomplish this task,
the skin which is made of two layers, employs two different principles. similar to the stomach, the inner layer is pleated,
but the outer layer is elastic. this elastic coating prevents the skin from getting rumpled, and thus hydro-dynamically impaired, when the puffer is deflated

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