A FIVE-year-old north Queensland boy is back on his feet recovering from surgery after a rare attack by a fish described as a cross between a tadpole and great white shark.

Tom Horn, 5, suffered horrific wounds to both feet when he was savaged by the 30cm-long tropical fish while wading with family in shallow water off the beach on Thursday Island.



Doctors at Cairns Base Hospital had to operate twice on the huge chunks of flesh gouged out of the child's feet in the mauling by a fish believed to be a ferocious pufferfish (feroxodon multistriatus) two months ago.



Surgeons plan to write a report for a medical journal to document the rare case that took about 30 stitches, and two weeks in hospital on antibiotics, to guard against marine infection, treat and heal.



"You can't go anywhere in the tropics without some wild creature trying to take a chunk out of you,'' joked Tom's father, Senior Sergeant Jamie Horn, who witnessed the attack on January 29.



"They were unbelievable wounds, the ball of his left big toe was missing and a chunk of flesh was missing out of his right heel,'' said the officer-in-charge of Thursday Island police. "You would not think a little puffer fish could be so vicious.''



In the hit animated film, Finding Nemo, Bloat the pufferfish is a gentle character more akin to a faulty blow-up toy.

But in the wild, they are described as "a cross between a tadpole and a Great White Shark'', capable of taking off fingers, toes and ears.



It is a case of twice bitten, twice shy for Thursday Island police, after Sgt Horn's colleague Sgt Jeff Tanswell was lucky to escape with his life when he was bitten on the head by a 3m crocodile while snorkelling in the Torres Strait in 2007.



"Tom's wounds have healed up beautifully, and fortunately he's not scared of the water,'' said Sgt Horn. "But lots of other stories about close encounters with pufferfish have emerged since his attack.''



Marine expert Dr Peter Doherty, research director at the Townsville-based Australian Institute of Marine Science, said he too nearly lost a finger to a pufferfish.



"They've got a great set of jaws with a beak like a parrot-fish for crushing up coral and rock,'' Dr Doherty said. "I'd put my hand into a bucket of fish, and it latched on to my finger and almost bit the whole finger off.''



He said one point of contact between humans and the fish was in shallow places such as water around boat ramps.



"It is more like accidental contact and being in the wrong place at the wrong time,'' he said. "If it is not the same species it would be a closely related to the one in Shute Harbour years ago.''



In 1979, Margaret Lewis, 6, lost two toes to a toadfish, nicknamed Thomas the Terrible Toadfish, while she waded barefoot in Shute Harbour. Thomas the Terrible was also blamed for also taking a chunk of flesh from the leg of a boy wading in Cid Harbour.



In the same year, Richard Timberley was attacked by the monster toadfish while he stood in water half-a-metre deep near Shute Harbour boat ramp, with the creature beaching itself as it attacked the victim's sneakers.



Proserpine Council put a $10 bounty on the menaces and swimmers were warned to watch out for their ears as well as toes.

Originally published as 'Killer tadpole' nearly took toes