Tetraodon nigroviridis: For more informations

At the moment Genoscope only distributes BAC and cDNAs clones, which can be obained by simply emailing BAC or cDNA clone names (visible in their respective track on the tetraodon genome browser) to clone.tetraodon AT genoscope.cns.fr.

Tetraodons cost about 5,00 US$ a piece depending on size. Generally if a shop that sells aquarium fish does not have any Tetraodon in store, they can order them for you even in relatively small quantities.

Tetraodons are generally maintained in 26-28 degrees centigrade brakish water in shops, but once in the lab they can rapidly adapt to tap water at that same temperature and be kept there days, weeks, or months. In the later case you may need to purchase some classic aquarium equipment such as water heater, circulating pump, frozen foods (shrimps, mussels, etc) and so on.

When buying a Tetraodon, be sure to ask first for Tetraodon fluviatilis. This is the name under which Tetraodon nigroviridis are often sold on the market. In reality, T. fluviatilis refers to a slightly different species of Tetraodon, but it is rarely found on the market. The real T. fluviatilis has three large black spots on its head and many smaller ones over its body, while T. nigroviridis has more or less even spots all over. You can see extensive examples of T. nigroviridis here. The book by Dr. Klauss Ebert (“The puffers of fresh and brackish waters” ,Verlag A.C.S. GmbH, ISBN:3-931702-60-X) also has a detailed discussion with photographs of the different types of Tetraodons.

In any case, to solve this confusing situation, we have developped molecular markers to differentiate between species. When extracting DNA from a Tetraodon, you may want to amplify by PCR a part of the mitochondrial DNA and check the sequence against the reference T. nigroviridis sequence we have obtained. All details are provided here.