Picasso Triggerfish

This Picasso triggerfish is also known as the Lagoon or Blackbar triggerfish, or more generically, hu-mu hu-mu (referring to all triggerfishes). It is a colorful relative of puffers, porcupinefishes, boxfishes, and filefishes-- all members of the order Tetraodontiformes.

Triggerfish are found in tropical waters around the world, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. The Triggerfish Family Balistidae contains about 30 species, with at least nine of these to be known from the Hawaiian area.


Triggerfish are tough and sleek, favoring shallow waters of the reef. Their tough skin and fused teeth make them capable of successfully attacking spiny sea urchins to get to the soft flesh. They also eat crabs, mollusks, worms, other fish, algae and are even known to nip at the tips of hard corals. This species only grows to about nine to ten inches (about 25 cm) but some others, such as the Titan triggerfish, may grow to 30 inches (75 cm). They are found in many areas of the Pacific from Hawaii to the Maldives, and even the southeast and east central Atlantic and the Red Sea.

The Picasso Trigger is a magnificent and very popular aquarium species that is easily recognized by its creamy grayish-tan and white colored body splashed with many distinctive bright blue and yellow fine-line, and golden, black and white wide-band type markings.

Other pictures of triggerfish.