Laurel Gerbrandt, age 10, of Dinuba, California, for her question:

What does a porcupine fish look like?

The four footed porcupine who lives peacefully in the woods is a very prickly character. He is famous for the long spiky quills that poke out from his skin. We would not expect a fish to be a four footed animal and we would not look for him in the woodsy outdoors. But surely his name suggests that he must be like our porcupine in some way. And so he is. The porcupine fish is covered all over with porcupine prickles. He has about 15 cousins of various sizes and we find them in warm or tropi¬cal oceans, usually near the bottom. They are called burrfish or boxfish, balloon fish or porcupine fish.

A Large porcupine fish may be three feet long. He spends a lot of time resting on the seabed with his prickles held flat against his body. But sometimes he puffs himself up with air or water and makes his prickles stand straight out. Then he looks like a huge balloon covered all over with two inch spikes. Some of his smaller cousins cannot make their spikes lie down flat. These fellows always look like prickly burrs. Sometimes the big porcupine fish is captured and skinned. The skin becomes a parch¬ment colored globe all covered with spikes. People of the Orient often use it to make a decorative lamp shade.