A toadfish is a scaleless bottom-feeding fish with a wide mouth and a broad head that resembles a toad’s head. The entire family of Batrachoididae fish are referred to as toadfish. There are several other families of fish that have members with the designation of toadfish in their name, such as the Tetraodontidae and the Psychrolutidae families. Toadfish thrive in warm, shallow water and can produce a croaking sound with their swim bladders.
Toadfish are slimy fish with a sluggish personality. They usually are yellowish in color with various patterns of brown bars and spots. They have a flat, broad head with an enormous mouth. Its large mouth is filled with very sharp teeth. Their bodies taper to a skinny tail that gives them a tadpole appearance. These fish also have spines and fleshy bumps on their heads, sharp gill covers and luminescent organs on their bellies.
A toadfish's diet consists primarily of small fish, mollusks, squid and crustaceans. These predators are experts at camouflage and can lie motionless until pray comes close. They will then surprise their prey with a quick attack. They can go long periods of time between eating because they require very little food to survive.
When people refer to toadfish, they usually referring to a fish in the Batrachoididae family. These fish are found in the shallow waters around the Eastern North American coast and down through Central and South America. Most toadfish are not poisonous, except those living in Central and South America that have venomous spines on their gill covers and dorsal fins.
The Tetraodontidae family of fish also include several types of toadfish, such as the banded, prickly, smooth and common variations, all of which can be found in Australia and New Zealand. The blackspotted variation swims in the tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and the red striped variation can be found in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. There are other toadfish that are in the Psychrolutidae<.em> family of fish, including the dark toadfish, the pale toadfish of New Zealand and the frilled toadfish of Macquarie Island.
Toadfish grow to be about 12 inches (30 cm) long, with some being larger and some being smaller. Males will viciously guard the eggs, which often are laid in empty shells or in tin cans. The male will continue to watch over the young fish for more than a month after they hatch as they consume their yolk sacs and learn to swim.