Ostracion meleagris, Shaw, 1796
The spotted boxfish (Ostracion meleagris), also known as the black boxfish, ornate boxfish or white-spotted boxfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Ostraciidae, the boxfishes. This species is found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It occurs on reefs at depths of from 1 to 30 metres (3.3 to 98.4 feet). This species grows to a length of 25 centimetres (9.8 inches). Males and females differ in colour: males are blackish on the back with white spots, and have bluish sides with bright yellowish bands and spots. Females and juveniles are dark brown to blackish with white spots. As with other species of boxfish, the spotted boxfish's bony carapace gives it a distinctly angular appearance; it has been described as resembling an ottoman.
The Spotted Boxfish has an oblong thick body that are enclosed in a bony box formed by thickened, joined, enlarged, and hexagonal scale plates. Juveniles with male patterns or colors are never seen or has never been spotted before; either the juvenile males are born with the female colors, or all the young juveniles are born as a female and change their sex later in their life.
Their diet consists of sponges, worms, tunicates as well as other small invertebrates.
They can be found in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. They can also be found in seaward and protected reefs. That's just where the adults reside most of the time, whilst the juveniles often find shelter between the long spines of the tropical sea urchins anchored to the rocks.
Phillip Lobel, an ichthyologist, found out that they mate during the afternoon and the early evening hours. The Spotted Boxfish species usually travel in a group, consisting of one male and several females. They start the mating process by the male nudging and circling one female. When she responds, they swim side-by-side while rising 6 ft or more from the bottom. The male leads the female to that point. Staying in that side-by-side formation with their tails together and heads slightly apart from one another, they both release their gametes (a mature haploid male or female germ cell which is able to unite with another of the opposite sex in sexual reproduction) and swim back to the bottom again together.
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