Pufferfish blink by pulling in their eyeballs and puckering their skin

By Christa Lesté-Lasserre

Pufferfish are the only bony fish that can close their eyes, and now we know how they do it. They sink their eyeballs deep into their sockets and then pucker the skin surrounding the eye together, like a camera aperture closing.

Also known as blowfish, pufferfish produce a blink-like response when researchers direct gentle jets of water towards their eyes. But instead of relying on an eyelid that slides vertically or horizontally – blinking as we know it – they close up the eye centrally, says Keisuke Ogimoto at the …