Diodon
a genus of toleostean fish, family Gymnodontes, order Plectognathi, deriving their name from the fact that the ivory-clad terminations of the jaws show no suture, and the fish thus appear to possess but two teeth. The body, as in other members of the family, can be inflated with air till the creature floats on the surface of the water under side uppermost; it is likewise covered with ossifications in the skin. The rotundity of these fish has earned for them the name of globe-fish, or prickly globe-fish, and sea hedgehog. The four species of diodon are found in all the seas between the tropics, and range to the Cape of Good Hope. The largest species (D. hystrix) attains the length of two feet six inches.
DIOMEDES dividual (female) and the spermatozoid by another (male). It is opposed to monœcious.
DIOGENES (dī-oj'ē-nēz), a celebrated Greek cynic; was a native of Sinope, in Pontus, where he was born 413 B. C.
He was banished from his country for coining false money, and repaired to Athens, where he studied philosophy under Antisthenes. He walked about the streets with a tub on his head, in which it is said he lodged at night. Being on a voyage, he was taken by pirates and sold into slavery at Corinth, where he became tutor to the sons of a rich citizen, but died in the greatest misery, 324 B. C. The inhabitants of Sinope raised statues to his memory, and the marble figure of a dog was placed on a high column erected on his tomb.
DIOMEDEA (after Diomedes, one of the Greek warriors before Troy), a genus of birds belonging to the Procellaridæ, or petrels. rels. D. exulans is the albatross.