Chelonodon (from Ancient Greek χελώνη (khelṓnē), meaning "turtle", and ὀδούς (odoús), meaning "tooth") is a genus of pufferfishes native to the Indo-Pacific. They are mainly found in coastal regions and estuaries, but sometimes in rivers.

Species and taxonomy

There are six recognized species in this genus:

• Chelonodon alvheimi (Psomadakis, Matsuura & Thein, 2018)

• Chelonodon kappa (Hamilton, 1822)

• Chelonodon laticeps (J. L. B. Smith, 1948) (Blue-spotted blaasop)

• Chelonodon leopardus (Day, 1878) (Banded leopard blowfish)

• Chelonodon patoca (F. Hamilton, 1822) (Milk-spotted puffer)

• Chelonodon pleurospilus (Regan, 1919) (Blaasop beauty)

• Synonyms

• Chelonodon bengalensis (Habib et al., 2018) (Bengal reticulated puffer) is a synonym of Chelonodon patoca

The type species of Chelonodon was Leiodon cutcutia, making it a synonym of Leiodon. As a consequence, Catalog of Fishes and other authorities instead placed the above species in Chelonodontops. FishBase, however, still uses Chelonodon, and therefore the type was changed to C. kappa in 2024.

References