Malabar Puffer Carinotetraodon travancoricus

The Malabar Puffer/Pufferfish, also called the Dwarf Puffer or Pea Puffer, is endemic to freshwater streams, lakes, paddyfields and ditches of Kerala and southern Karnataka in Southwest India. It can grow to 2.5cm (1 inch) long (exceptionally to 3.5cm). A shoaling species, it eats mainly insect larvae, worms and small snails. Populations are vulnerable through damming, deforestation, pollution and over-collection for aquaria. The rare, related Dwarf Malabar Puffer, C. imitator of India's Western Ghats is similar.