Scrawled cowfish

Encased in a rigid, bony shell and carrying a pair of spines above its eyes that look like tiny horns, the scrawled cowfish resembles an armoured ornament more than a living fish. It grows up to 55 cm long.

Also known as: shellfish, trunkfish, scrawled cowfish, bighead boxfish

Cowfish are easy to confuse with other trunkfishes that share the same boxy, armour-plated body. The two pairs of spines described above, above the eyes and at the rear corners of the shell, are the giveaway - a feature smooth-bodied trunkfishes lack entirely.

This fish has a thick, oblong body mostly enclosed in a bony shell made of jointed, hexagonal plates. A pair of large spines juts out above each eye, and a second pair sits at the lower rear corners of the shell. Its mouth is small with fleshy lips. Colour ranges from gray-brown to yellowish green, with a blue stripe running from the snout to the base of the anal fin, plus irregular blue spots and stripes across the body and parallel blue lines on the cheeks. Juveniles are plainer, pale gray-brown with dark-edged blue spots.

It lives in the western Atlantic, from Bermuda and the northeastern US south through the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico to Brazil. It is usually found in seagrass beds and lagoon habitats between about 10 and 30 metres deep, though it can range down to 80 metres.

It feeds slowly and deliberately, picking off sessile invertebrates such as tunicates, gorgonian sea fans, and anemones, along with sponges, hermit crabs, slow-moving crustaceans, and some marine plants. It spawns at certain times of year, releasing eggs and larvae that drift in open water before settling onto the reef as juveniles.

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  Boxfish

  box_fish

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  Buffalo Trunkfish

  Lactophrys trigonus

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  Longhorn Cowfish

  Lactoria cornuta

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  Smooth Trunkfish

  Lactophrys triqueter

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  Spotted Trunkfish

  Lactophrys bicaudalis

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  Striped Boxfish

  Ostracion solorense