Masked puffer

The masked puffer (Arothron diadematus) is endemic to the Red Sea – you will not find this masked character anywhere else on Earth. Its grey-green, scaleless body carries a distinctive black band running across the eyes like a bandit's mask, with more black around the pectoral fin bases and the mouth. Its teeth are fused into four plates forming a sharp beak, which it uses to crunch coral tips, sponges and crustaceans. Its tissues contain tetrodotoxin, so predators rarely bother it.

Like all puffers it swims not with its tail but by sculling with its small pectoral, dorsal and anal fins, which gives it that leisurely, helicopter-like motion. When threatened it gulps water into its stomach and inflates into a ball too large to swallow. Its most remarkable moment, though, comes in early summer: masked puffers gather by the dozens, sometimes hundreds, on the reefs to spawn – one of the strangest mass gatherings in the Red Sea.

Around Hurghada it is a common sight: you can meet it on almost any reef, hovering unhurriedly over the coral garden or resting beneath an overhang. It is not shy at all – it will let you drift quite close as long as you avoid sudden movements. It regularly turns up on the shallow reef tops for snorkelers too, and photographers love it: slow, curious and effortlessly photogenic.