Fancy a fish puff?

A family got a fright when an unfamiliar spiky sea creature inflated in front of them on a Marlborough Sounds beach.

Mum Deanna said her family were living on a boat in the Marlborough Sounds, and were paddling along the shoreline in Bay of Many Coves on Tuesday when they noticed a fish that ‘‘looked a bit weird’’ swim past.

‘‘So I gave it a flick up on to the beach with a paddle, and then it puffed up,’’ she said.

The fish went from the size of ‘‘small cod’’ to a ‘‘basketball’’ when it inflated on the beach, Deanna said, and the family ‘‘definitely got out of the water pretty quickly’’ after becoming concerned that it might

be poisonous.

‘‘It was really surprising. We definitely got a fright’’.

Te Papa assistant curator of fishes Andrew Stewart identified it as a southern burrfish (allomycterus pilatus).

A close relative of the pufferfish, burrfish were ‘‘two-toothed’’, with their teeth fused into one tooth on the upper jaw and one on the bottom jaw, Stewart said.

‘‘They use the teeth for biting off chunks of invertebrates like snails, mussels, sponges, but they will also take bites out of other things that get too close,’’ Stewart said. ‘‘I wouldn’t go sticking my finger anywhere near the mouth, because the teeth are like bolt cutters.’’

Stewart said burrfish only posed a risk if they were eaten. ‘‘The spikes might puncture you a bit.’’