Guinean puffer
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
The larger of the two Canary puffers, and the one whose tetrodotoxin load has actually been measured — high enough in the gut and gonads to matter.
Safety: contamination and toxins in the catch — can cause serious injury or death. One more point applies here.
Contamination and toxins in the catch — Can cause serious injury or death
Analysis of this species taken at Madeira found high tetrodotoxin concentrations in several tissues — up to 15 mg per kilogram in the digestive tract of one specimen and 7.4 mg per kilogram in the gonads of another — together with several tetrodotoxin analogues. Tetrodotoxin blocks nerve conduction and kills by respiratory paralysis. There is no antidote, and it survives cooking and freezing intact.
What reduces it: Do not eat it, keep it, gut it or clean it, and wash hands after handling one. Anybody who has eaten puffer and develops tingling or numbness around the mouth, weakness or breathing difficulty needs emergency care immediately: the treatment is supported ventilation, and it works only if it is started in time.
Worse when:
- Assuming that gutting the fish removes the problem — the skin carries toxin as well.
- Cooking, which does not destroy the toxin.
- Cleaning other fish on a board a puffer has been on without washing it down.
Catching Guinean puffer
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Ground
- When
- Mar and May — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
- Where
- 2 places FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: recorded here · From the shore
Where the sharpnose puffer is a sharply tapered five-centimetre fish, *Sphoeroides marmoratus* is a rounder, blunter, altogether more substantial animal reaching a FishBase maximum of 20 cm and about twice its length. It is mottled brown, olive and cream with a pale belly, it lives demersally from about 1 to 100 m along the eastern Atlantic from Portugal to Angola, and it is common on Macaronesian shore ground.
It is the puffer whose toxicity can be stated most precisely, because it is the one that has been analysed. A study of native puffers from Madeira measured tetrodotoxin in several tissues, reaching 15 mg per kilogram in the digestive tract of one male and 7.4 mg per kilogram in the gonads of one female, along with several tetrodotoxin analogues. Those are real, published numbers from the same archipelago an angler catching one will be standing in.
What follows is short. Unhook it, do not keep it, put it back. Tetrodotoxin has no antidote, is not broken down by cooking, and kills by paralysing the muscles used to breathe. Removing the guts does not make a puffer safe, because the skin carries toxin too.
Two of them came to a light-tackle angler in a week on Lanzarote, on his first afternoon, one of which inflated when handled. Inflation is a stress response and not a party trick, and a puffer made to inflate repeatedly is a puffer being harmed. It also, like every puffer, bites — the beak crushes shellfish and does not distinguish between a mollusc and a finger.
How it is caught
Where Guinean puffer is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
The Azores
1 documented place
Ponta Delgada harbour, São Miguel
Harbour wall
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported Mar
Lanzarote
1 documented place
Puerto del Carmen harbour, Lanzarote
Harbour wall
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported May
What these strengths mean
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
Identification
No photograph of Guinean puffer has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Sphoeroides marmoratus
- Family
- Tetraodontidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- Western Europe, West Africa, North Africa
- Rounder and blunter in the snout than the Macaronesian sharpnose puffer, and about twice its length: FishBase records a maximum of 20 cm.
- Mottled brown, olive and cream over the back and flanks with a plain pale belly, and small skin prickles rather than scales.
- A fused beak of four teeth, and no pelvic fins.
- Inflates when handled or alarmed, which the sharpnose puffer also does but which is far more conspicuous on a fish this size.
- Taken on or near the bottom over mixed ground, rather than up in the water column.
Size
- Typical
- 10–16 cm
- Large
- 18 cm and over
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 20 cm
Lifecycle and reproduction
Demersal over a depth range of 1 to 100 m along the eastern Atlantic, and common on shallow island ground. High resilience.
Not documented on the FishBase record for this species and not supplied from the family. What is worth stating instead is that the toxin load is not a reproductive-season phenomenon that an angler could time around: tetrodotoxin is present in the tissues of these fish generally, and the gonad concentrations measured at Madeira are a reason for more caution rather than a seasonal window.
Feeding and senses
Crushes hard-shelled invertebrates — molluscs, crustaceans, urchins — with the fused beak, working over mixed ground close to the bottom. It takes baits and small lures freely and is a common incidental capture wherever it occurs.
Close-range sight over the bottom, with the same independently mobile eyes as the other puffers. It approaches and inspects rather than ambushing, which is why it is so often caught by anglers fishing small baits patiently.
Through the year
Resident year-round across its range, and caught by accident in every month wherever shore anglers fish over mixed ground. Nothing about its season changes the handling advice, which is the only advice this record gives.
Distribution
Eastern Atlantic: Portugal to Angola. The Macaronesian archipelagos, including Madeira and the Canary Islands, fall within that range, and the documented shore captures come from them.
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
A regular unintended capture in shore fishing from Portugal to the Canaries and down the African coast, on bait and on small lures over mixed ground. It has no value as food and carries a measured toxin load. What it is genuinely useful for is teaching the point: an angler who can name the puffer in their hand and knows why it is going back is an angler who will not make the far more dangerous decision at some point in the future.
Handling and returning
Unhook it with pliers in the water where possible, keeping fingers well clear of the beak. Do not provoke it into inflating, do not keep it, do not gut it and do not eat it. Wash hands after handling one, particularly before eating.
Safety
Contamination and toxins in the catch is set out at the top of this page, where it cannot be missed.
Species that bite — Minor injury
The beak is powerful enough to crush urchins and shellfish and will remove skin from a finger held near the mouth of a fish this size.
What reduces it: Unhook with pliers and keep fingers away from the head entirely.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Where it lives
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources and evidence
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Sphoeroides marmoratus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The Least Concern assessment for Sphoeroides marmoratus, assessed 07 June 2011.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin in two native puffer fish from the NE Atlantic (Madeira Island) — Marine Environmental Research (Elsevier), 2019 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: The measured tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin concentrations in Sphoeroides marmoratus tissues from Madeira, including 15 mg/kg in the digestive tract and 7.4 mg/kg in the gonads of individual specimens.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That this species is taken from named public shore marks on Lanzarote, how many were caught across one week in May, and the light-tackle methods and baits that took them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 3 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Macaronesian sharpnose puffer
Canthigaster capistrata is sharply snouted, laterally compressed and reaches 9.2 cm; Sphoeroides marmoratus is rounder, blunter and reaches 20 cm. The separation matters less for the hazard, which applies to both, than for knowing which fish the measured toxin figures belong to.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The morphology, size, depth range and distribution that separate these two species from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How it is caught
Reported, not established — 1 connection
Reported, but without independent support. Recorded because it is in circulation, not because it has been shown to hold.
Light rock fishing
Recorded twice at Pila de La Barrilla on light tackle over mixed ground. As with the sharpnose puffer, the capture is incidental and the identification is not — the handling advice depends on knowing which fish it is.
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: The light-tackle methods, rigs, lures, baits and hook sizes a species-hunting angler used on Lanzarote, and the species each took.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where it lives
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Inshore ground
Recorded as demersal from 1 to 100 m along the eastern Atlantic from Portugal to Angola, working the bottom for the hard-shelled invertebrates its beak is built for.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Sphoeroides marmoratus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.