Striped Burrfish
Chilomycterus schoepfii
 

• Like many other salt water fish, the striped burrfish (Chilomycterus schoepfii) is a species with a self-explanatory name.
• It's body has an olive or yellow green background with numerous black or dusky-brown stripes and numerous relatively short and massive spines which cover the head and create the appearance of a large burr.
• Hence we have the aptly named striped burrfish.

• Maximum size has been reported¹ as 25 cm. (10") total length, but we have recorded an individual of 32 cm. (12") from the coastal bays. The smallest individual we caught was 51 cm. (2").

• Occurring from New England to Brazil (including the Gulf of Mexico), the striped burrfish is found throughout Maryland's Coastal Bays and in the Chesapeake Bay from the mouth north to about the Patuxent River.

• The Maryland Coastal Bays Fisheries Project has documented striped burrfish at seven seine stations and fifteen trawl stations in Maryland's Coastal Bays over the past 25 years.
• We have found them as early as May 20th and as late as September 29th.
• Catches usually occur in areas within or adjacent to SAV's (Submerged Aquatic Vegetation) and most of the literature confirms this as their preferred habitat.
• Adults are most often found on grass beds although they have been found in waters as deep as 91 meters (299 feet).
• They live in water with a salt content of 6.9 to 47 parts per thousand and within a water temperature range of 12.4 - 38^oC (54 - 100^oF) and are unable to survive in water less than about 6^oC (43^oF)²

• Feeding is primarily on shellfish (mainly gastropods), barnacles and crabs.
• Because of their large beak-like jaws they are able to feed on some of the mollusks & crustaceans that smaller fish would be unable to eat.
• Feeding studies have found their stomachs filled with hermit crabs, many being swallowed entirely, other larger ones having the shell crushed³.
• Studies with hermit crabs⁴ showed them to move rapidly away from burrfish when placed in an aquarium, and I have observed blue crabs to exhibit the same behavior.

• They are believed to spawn offshore but uncertainty exists as to the time.
• A ripe individual was found in the Chesapeake in October⁵ by some researchers yet others list the spawning season as July.
• Their eggs are demersal, unadhesive and transparent with an average diameter of 1.8 mm.

• It is unlikely that you will ever catch a striped burrfish on hook and line, but if you do please handle them with gloves. The spines (burrs) are quite sharp and the powerful jaws and parrot-like beak can surely produce a painful bite.
• They are generally too small to provide any value as a food source and DNR cautions against consuming them.

• The striped burrfish has a defense system in the form of an organ known as a buccal pump which allows it to inflate its body considerably when threatened⁶.
• Elasticity of its skin and the ability to fill its stomach with water by means of the buccal pump provides it with a unique defense system.
• Inflation in the striped burfish is not as extreme as that of the norther puffer (Spheroides maculatus) but when combined with the presence of its sharp spines it no doubt is more effective in deterring a would-be predator.

Family:	Diodontidae (Porcupinefishes (burrfishes))
Order:	Tetraodontiformes (puffers & filefishes)
Class:	Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes)

For more information on striped burrfish and their management, please contact Mike Luisi.

Illustration by Diane Rome Peebles
Provided by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission,
Division of Marine Fisheries Management

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References:
^1. Perlmutter, Alfred, 1961. Guide to Marine Fishes, p. 411.2. Martin, F.D. and G.E. Drewry, 1978. in Development of the Fishes of the Mid-Atlantic Bight. Vol. 5: 306-309.
^3. Motta, Philip J., Kari B. Clifton, Patricia Hernandez, Bradley T. Eggold, Steven D. Giordano and Rebecca Wilcox; 1995. Feeding Relationships among nine species of seagrass fishes of Tampa Bay, Florida. Bulletin on Marine Science 56(1); 185 - 200.
^4. Kuhlman, Mark L., 1992. Behavioral avoidance of predation in an intertidal hermit crab. Journal of Marine Biology and Ecology 157: 143 - 158.
^5. Hildebrand, Samuel F. and William C. Schroeder, 1972. Fishes of Chesapeake Bay, pp. 350-351.
^6. Wainwright, Peter C., Ralph G. Turnigan, and Elizabeth Brainerd; 1995. Functional Morphology of Pufferfish Inflation: Mechanism of the Buccal Pump. Copeia (3): 514 - 525.
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