Long-horned Cowfish

About

The long-horned cowfish (Lactoria cornuta) is one of those fish that makes people do a double-take. Those two prominent horns projecting forward from above the eyes are unlike anything else in the saltwater hobby. The rigid, box-like body is covered in a fused bony carapace, leaving only the fins, lips, and tail free to move. This gives it a distinctive waddling, almost helicopter-like swimming style that is slow and deliberate. In the wild it ranges across a huge swath of the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea and East Africa all the way out to the Marquesas and Tuamotu islands, typically hanging around sandy and muddy inshore habitats, harbors, estuaries, and weedy reef edges. Juveniles sometimes turn up in brackish water near river mouths. Adults are solitary and can be quite shy once they reach full size. It feeds naturally by blowing jets of water into the sand to uncover buried invertebrates, and will do the same in a home aquarium. That curiosity is real. This fish will nose around and investigate anything new in its environment. It belongs in the hands of experienced keepers, partly due to its size and partly because it can release a toxic substance when severely stressed, which poses a serious risk to tankmates.