Big fish eat little fish. That's one of the laws of the ocean. A law almost as reliable and consistent as the physical laws guiding the motion of water.

The ocean is not a friendly place. There's no bushes to hide behind. There's no trees to climb.

And in case you hadn't noticed, there isn't much vegetation to eat. And so, while many land animals don't eat any other animals, most fish

are eating other fish. The ocean is a realm of violence, a three-dimensional battlefield without an ounce of cover,

where animals have to survive by forcing down every animal small enough to fit in their mouths.

Big fish eat little fish. But sometimes little fish become big fish.

Today we're going to talk about the porcupine fish, diodon hystrix.

I'm Mackin. This is species.

Welcome to the show and welcome to all new listeners.

It has been so cool to hear from all of you, and I'll be catching up on your five-star views at the end of the show.

If you're new here, you might have noticed that this show has no ads and no paywall.

There are a lot of reasons for this, but mainly I don't want to have to fake enthusiasm about

mattresses or meal delivery services because that would take away credibility from my very

real enthusiasm about animals. And second, I want as many of you as possible to be able to listen.

Even if you don't have money to spend on

edutainment. If you do have money though and you want to support this project, you can do so by

going to Speciespodcast.com slash donate. Even a dollar a month, a quarter an episode, makes an

enormous difference. Thanks for the support. Thank you, Eric and the animals for playing me in.

And now, without further ado, I present to you the porcupine fish.

Take a deep breath in, and hold it for a moment. Puffing out your chest and stomach as much as is comfortable. You might assume that a

porcupine fish, often called a puffer fish in layman's terms, though that is more appropriately used to

describe a different group of animals, you might assume that a porcupine fish, inflating themselves,

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