Category talk:Pufferfish

Should this category include porcupinefish?

In real life, the term "pufferfish" usually refers specifically to fish of the family Tetraodontidae, but colloquially is sometimes also used for fish of the family Diodontidae (also called porcupinefish or blowfish), which are closely related to Tetraodontidae and have very similar morphology. Currently the category excludes some species that seem to be based specifically on porcupinefish (Porcupinefish, Loch Nestor, Spined Puffer), but it does include Puftup, which is based on porcupinefish according to developer documents.

Personally, I think porcupinefish should be included because I don't think it's a good idea to try to classify cartoon characters by strictly adhering to real-life zoologic nomenclature. This wiki already has a precedent of being a bit loose with animal classifications (notably, Category:Elephants includes mammoths and Category:Felines includes big cats), and pufferfish and porcupinefish are so similar that it seems like the developers of some of these games are unaware that they belong to different families, as evidenced by all the overlap in names for these subjects. For example, Puftoss is named after pufferfish, despite being a porcupinefish, and in japanese, Porcupuffer is named after pufferfish while Needle Bomb is named after porcupinefish.

If porcupinefish should be included, this category could be renamed to "Pufferfish and porcupinefish" to make that more explicit, but since the term pufferfish sometimes is also informally used for porcupinefish as mentioned previously, this might not be necessary. (Though, honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to renaming Category:Elephants to Category:Elephants and mammoths.) Dive Rocket Launcher 01:39, April 17, 2026 (UTC)

i agree with the point about being loose with zoologic nomenclature, especially because developers themselves often play loose with them. for this reason, i agree with including porcupinefish in this category. what i am unsure of is the name, though. does a single term that encompasses both exist? — eviemaybe (talk) 02:50, April 17, 2026 (UTC)

The closest thing to a formal single term for both is "tetraodontoid" (from the superfamily name Tetraodontoidea), though I have reservations about strictly using taxonomical nomenclature on this wiki for the same reason I have reservations about strictly using zoological nomenclature. To be clear, I'd be fine with either keeping this as "Category:Pufferfish" and clarifying in the text that it includes porcupinefish, similar to how Category:Elephants includes mammoths, or renaming it to "Category:Pufferfish and porcupinefish", similar to Category:Seahorses and pipefish. Dive Rocket Launcher 04:33, April 17, 2026 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind including cowfish (also of the tetradont family) in the category if they were present (though the closest I can think of is Moofish, who may or may not be... Zelda has a cowfish enemy, though). Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 18:07, April 17, 2026 (UTC)

I can't find any clear-cut examples of Tetraodontiformes on this wiki outside of Tetraodontidae and Diodontidae. The closest I could find are Moofish and Blaufisch, the latter of which may be based on Kine, which is based on an ocean sunfish, but that's a stretch. I think it should be restricted to just the two "pufferfish" families for now. Since they're so similar to each other, categorizing them together would remove the need to make questionable judgment calls about the classification of fictional fish. Dive Rocket Launcher 02:38, April 18, 2026 (UTC)