Do Fish Bite? – All You Need To Know For The Most Common Species

Most species of fish are capable of biting, but there’s quite a bit of difference in what that might mean for you.

The giant and docile whale shark, which feeds on microscopic plankton, has a mouth into which you could slide your hand. You might even feel rough surfaces there, but a “bite” – no way!

By contrast, the angry maw of a barracuda is filled with razor-sharp teeth, and its predatory diet and attraction to shiny objects like rings, watches, and even the metal pieces of diving equipment mean that people have been bitten by them. 

And all those aggressive teeth can cause serious damage!

Let’s break this question down a bit and give you the kind of answer you really want.

Table of Contents (clickable)

• 1 Freshwater Game Species
  • 1.1 Panfish: Perch, Bluegill, Trout, Crappie, Sunfish, Smallmouth Bass
  • 1.2 Largemouth Bass
  • 1.3 Catfish
  • 1.4 Walleye
  • 1. 5 Pike and Muskie
• 2 Saltwater Game Species
  • 2.1 Bluefish
  • 2.2 Speckled Trout and Flounder
  • 2.3 Striped Bass, Cobia, Redfish, and Grouper
  • 2.4 King Mackerel and Wahoo
  • 2.5 Barracuda
  • 2.6 Tuna 
  • 2.7 Shark
• 3 Final Thoughts

Freshwater Game Species

Panfish: Perch, Bluegill, Trout, Crappie, Sunfish, Smallmouth Bass

These commonly caught – and highly sought after – species have expandable mouth parts, and though they prey on fish, insects, and aquatic invertebrates, they lack true teeth.

If you look hard enough, you’ll see some patches that resemble sand paper, essentially rough portions of their mandible designed to allow them to grip their prey.

They don’t bite, however, and you can safely handle them, carefully hold them by the mouth, and swim in a school of any of these species with no danger whatsoever.

Learn more: Crappie Fishing Tips

Largemouth Bass

America’s most popular game fish, largemouth bass have enormous, telescoping mandibles that are perfect for trapping prey items like crawfish, minnows, shad, and other small fish.

And again, if you look carefully, you’ll see that the laregmouth’s “lips” are covered in tiny, tiny teeth that feel like coarse sandpaper.

If you’re having an outstanding morning’s fishing, and you’re catching bass after bass, you may develop what’s commonly known among anglers as “bass thumb.” All that contact with the largemouth’s minute teeth will wear your skin just like a pass with 60 grit sandpaper, but that’s the extent of the “bite.”

Most anglers are proud of having a bad case of “bass thumb!”

You can safely handle and swim with largemouth bass with absolutely no danger to you.

Learn more: Bass Fishing Tips

Catfish

If you take a look inside a catfish’s mouth, you’ll see lots of tiny teeth just fractions of an inch long. Designed to hold prey like slippery fish in place, they can rough up your skin a bit, giving you a mild abrasion, but that’s it.

There’s even a method of fishing for catfish in which you intentionally place your hand into their mouths, let them grab you ,and pull them free from their housing place.

Noodling is a popular technique in the deep south.

Catfish don’t bite, and it’s safe to swim with them.

But they are venomous, packing quite a punch. As the University of Michigan reports, “Catfish venom glands are found alongside sharp, bony spines on the edges of the dorsal and pectoral fins, and these spines can be locked into place when the catfish is threatened. When a spine jabs a potential predator, the membrane surrounding the venom gland cells is torn, releasing venom into the wound.”

So it’s important to learn to handle catfish correctly, but there’s no danger of a bite.

Learn more: Catfish Tips

Walleye

That’s a mouth you don’t want any part of!

Walleye are native to the northern US and Canada, and among the region’s most popular game fish. Delicious and fun to catch, trolling for walleye on the Great Lakes is a rite of passage for thousands of anglers every year.

Walleye eat fish, and they have plenty of teeth to catch, grip, and tear flesh.

You definitely don’t want to stick your fingers into a walleye’s mouth, but there’s no danger handling them properly or swimming in waters where they’re hunting. 

They’re simply not the least bit interested in you!

Learn more: Walleye Fishing Tips

Pike and Muskie

Northern pike, and the closely related muskie, are aggressive ambush predators with mouths full of long, rearward-facing teeth. 

They most certainly will bite you if you put your hand in their mouth, but attacks on humans are so rare as to be almost non-existent and certainly cases of mistaken identification.

One child was probably bitten by one of these two species as she dangled her feet in the water, and you can see that the wound is no joke.

It’s not clear which species is responsible for this bite, but pike and muskie are the most likely culprits.

But again, this is so rare that it’s almost unheard of, and it’s completely safe to swim where muskie and pike are found.

Learn more: Pike Fishing Tips | Muskie Fishing Tips

Saltwater Game Species

Bluefish

Bluefish have plenty of teeth.

Bluefish are aggressive predators that are fun to catch, as they fight hard and never say die.

They’re armed with a sharp set of small teeth, and you definitely don’t want to put your finger in their mouths to remove a hook.

Instead, use a pair of long-nose pliers and save yourself some stitches!

Despite these teeth and their aggressive predation, there is absolutely no danger to swimming in and around bluefish.

Speckled Trout and Flounder

Speckled trout are armed with two “fangs” and plenty of small, sharp teeth.

Most sought-after saltwater species have teeth, and it’s not a good idea to put your hand in their mouths.

Flounder have sharp teeth – keep your fingers clear!

Even common catches like speckled trout and flounder have teeth, but as long as you don’t stick a finger in their mouth, nothing’s going to happen.  

I’ve never heard of anyone being bitten by these fish, and they’re safe to handle as long as you don’t slip a finger in where the teeth can get you.

They’re no danger to swim with as they are completely non-aggressive toward humans.

Striped Bass, Cobia, Redfish, and Grouper

It’s safe to “lip” striped bass, just like you would a largemouth.

Much like the largemouth bass or catfish, striped bass, cobia, and grouper sport tiny areas of coarse teeth that are designed to help them grip prey items.

Cobia have mouths a lot like a catfish.

It’s completely safe to put your hand or fingers in the mouth of a striped bass, cobia, grouper, or redfish, and they are no danger whatsoever to people.

Redfish have rough structures, but no true teeth.

These are all species that are simply non-aggressive toward people, and it’s great to swim near these beautiful fish while snorkeling or diving.

Grouper get big and have big mouths, but no teeth – just sand-paper like structures to improve their grip on prey.

King Mackerel and Wahoo

A king Mackerel’s mouth is nothing to mess with!

If you’re looking for teeth, check out the mouth of a King Mackerel!

Just don’t put your hands near its mouth, and everything should be fine. Yes, if you put your hand in one’s mouth to remove a hook – you should always use pliers or a long tool for this – you may be bitten.

I’m sure people run afoul of the King Mackerel’s teeth when they’re not being careful, but there’s no danger if you handle them safely.

Wahoo are similarly, though not as impressively, armed by nature. But the same general guidelines apply: just don’t put your hand near their mouths and you won’t have any trouble.

Wahoo are armed with an impressive set of sharp teeth.

Barracuda

Barracuda are torpedoes with teeth, and their aggressive behavior inclines them to bite.

When mishandled, you can expect to be on the receiving end of those sharp teeth, and they have been known to mistake flashy objects like jewelry for fish scales and attack divers.

The aftermath of a barracuda bite.

But this is VERY rare, and almost always a case of mistaken identification by the fish. 

It’s generally safe to swim with barracuda as long as they’re not actively feeding:

Tuna 

Tuna have small teeth lining their upper mandible, helping them grab and hold the fish they prey on.

And while not particularly fearsome in comparison to the King Mackerel or barracuda, it’s best to avoid putting a hand or finger in one’s mouth!

If you’re lucky enough to dive or snorkel bear tuna, don’t worry – they’re completely non-aggressive and beautiful to watch.

Tuna have a rw of small, sharp teeth along their upper mandible.

Shark

This mako sports impressive teeth.

It goes without saying that the species of shark that are popular with anglers have teeth and are happy to use them in you do something stupid.

Keeping your hands, arms, feet, and legs well away from their mouths is a priority, and they will bite if you give them the chance.

Surprisingly, swimming with sharks is a lot safer than you’d think, and the overwhelming majority of the time, sharks are simply curious about what you are and not the least bit interested in making you dinner.

That’s hard to believe, but professional divers will reassure you. “Although Sharks are carnivorous, they do not preferentially prey on scuba divers, or even humans. Sharks do attack humans, but such attacks are extremely rare! A person’s chance of being attacked by a shark in the US is 1 / 11.5million and the chances of being killed is less that 1 / 264.1 million.”

Final Thoughts

Most fish can technically bite, but not all of them have teeth that can cause an injury. And even among the species that do, very few are inclined to bite people, unless you give them a real reason to do so like a finger in the mouth.

We hope you’ve learned something today, and as always, we’re here to answer any questions you might have.

Please leave a comment below!

Marine Animal Bite or Sting

Medically reviewed by Drugs.com. Last updated on Jun 6, 2023.

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What is a marine animal bite or sting?

A marine animal bite or sting happens when you are poisoned or wounded by an animal that lives in salt water. Marine animals that bite include barracudas, moray eels, and sharks. Portuguese man-of-war, jellyfish, and sea anemones are some of the animals that inject poison through their tentacles when they come in contact with a person’s skin. Broken tentacles can still sting for weeks or months after being separated from the animal, even if they are dried. Stingrays and sea urchins are some of the other marine animals that sting using their spines and barbs.

What are the signs and symptoms of a marine animal bite or sting?

• Bite wounds: You may have any of the following:
  • Bleeding, torn skin, or large areas of skin bitten off
  • Throbbing pain or trouble moving the bitten area
  • Broken bones
  • Redness, tenderness, or warmth around the wound, or pus coming from the wound
  • Fever

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• Stings: You may have any of the following:
  • Pain that burns, pricks, or stings where you were stung
  • Itching, tingling, or numbness where you were stung
  • Redness, rash, blisters, or other skin changes where you were stung
  • Bleeding and swelling where you were stung
  • Nausea and vomiting
  • Headache, fever, chills, sweating, weakness, and muscle cramps
  • A severe allergic reaction, which can cause trouble breathing, fainting, and convulsions

How is a marine animal bite or sting diagnosed?

Your healthcare provider will ask you to describe your symptoms and will examine the injured area. Tell your provider all the details you know about the bite or sting, including when it occurred and if you saw what happened. Your provider will check to see how deep the wound is and look for signs of infection. You may need the following:

• Blood tests: Your healthcare provider may order blood tests to check for an infection.
• Wound culture: This is a method to grow and identify the germs that may be in your wound. This helps healthcare providers find out if you have an infection and the best medicine to treat it.
• X-ray: This is a picture of your bones and tissues in the wound area. Healthcare providers use these pictures to look for broken bones or objects such as spines or teeth.

How is a marine animal bite or sting treated?

Treatment depends on what marine animal caused the injury, and the location and severity of the injury. It also depends on how long you have had the injury and whether other body parts were affected. You may need any of the following:

• Wound cleaning: Pieces of teeth, tentacles, or spine left inside the skin will be removed carefully. Your healthcare provider may soak your wound in hot, non-scalding water for some time. The wound will be cleaned with soap, water, and antibacterial solution. This helps wash away germs which may be in the wound, and decrease the chances of infection. Objects, dirt, or dead tissues from the open wound will be removed. Healthcare providers may drain the wound to clean out pus.
• Medicines: Your healthcare provider will give you antibiotic medicine to fight infection. You may also be given medicine to ease your symptoms, such as pain, swelling, and allergic reactions. You may need tetanus shots, immune globulins, and antivenom medicine. You may also receive oxygen or a blood transfusion.
• Stitches or surgery: Your wound may be left open until it heals or it may be closed with stitches. You may need surgery to repair a broken bone or damaged joint, tendon, or nerve. Rarely, you may need surgery to rebuild or remove the body part with the bite wound.

How should I care for my wound?

• Bites:
  • Flush the bitten area with water. Clean it with mild soap and water to prevent infection.
  • Use a clean cloth to apply direct pressure to the wound to stop any bleeding.
  • Do not remove teeth from a marine animal. This could further damage your muscles or tissues. Leave teeth in place until your healthcare provider can remove them.
• Stings:
  • If tentacles are attached, soak your skin in vinegar for at least 10 minutes before you remove them. Do not use alcohol. Alcohol may cause the tentacle to fire more poison. Use tweezers to gently remove the tentacles from the skin. Do not touch the tentacles with your hands. Another way to remove the tentacles is to apply shaving cream or baking soda to the area. Then, scrape away the tentacles very gently with a razor blade. If you are on a beach, make a paste of sand and seawater. Apply the paste, then scrape off the tentacles using a shell or credit card.
  • Soak the affected area in hot water for 60 to 90 minutes.
  • Carefully remove pieces of broken spines or barbs from your skin. Put on gloves before you do this. Do not try to remove pieces that are inside a deep cut. Do not try to remove pieces if you think they may be lodged in a joint or nerve.
  • Wash the sting site using soap and water. Apply an antibiotic ointment on broken skin or hydrocortisone cream to relieve pain.

What are the risks from a marine animal bite or sting?

There is a risk of severe loss of blood and tissues. Medicines to treat a marine animal bite or sting may cause nausea, vomiting, or stomach ulcers. You may develop soreness, redness, or swelling where tetanus shots were given. Untreated marine bites or stings may lead to more serious problems, such as infections and severe allergic reactions. Severe allergic reactions may cause life-threatening problems such as irregular heartbeats, breathing problems, or coma.

When should I contact my healthcare provider?

• You have a fever.
• You have a skin rash, itching, or swelling after taking your medicine.
• You have tingling in the area of the bite or sting.
• You have pain or problems moving the injured area or get tender lumps in your groin or armpits.
• You have questions or concerns about your condition or care.

When should I seek immediate care or call 911?

• You are having trouble talking, walking, or breathing.
• You have double vision, slurred speech, drooling, muscle cramps or convulsions.
• You have swelling, numbness, or cannot move the arm or leg below the injury.
• You have tightness in your throat, wheezing when you breathe, swollen tongue, or rashes over your body.
• Your pain is the same or worse even after taking medicine.
• Your wound does not stop bleeding even after you apply pressure.
• Your wound or bandage has pus or a bad smell, even if you are clean it every day.

Care Agreement

You have the right to help plan your care. Learn about your health condition and how it may be treated. Discuss treatment options with your healthcare providers to decide what care you want to receive. You always have the right to refuse treatment. The above information is an educational aid only. It is not intended as medical advice for individual conditions or treatments. Talk to your doctor, nurse or pharmacist before following any medical regimen to see if it is safe and effective for you.

© Copyright Merative 2023 Information is for End User’s use only and may not be sold, redistributed or otherwise used for commercial purposes.

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Regular version of the site

What poisons are produced by pufferfish, stone fish, sleep fish, terrifying wart – and why they sometimes cause psychedelic effects

stone fish
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Wikimedia Commons

Alpina Non-Fiction Publishing House published a popular science book by marine biologist Helen Scales “What the Fish Are Silent About. Guide to the life of marine life. IQ publishes a fragment from it, from which you will find out how and when the fish acquired the ability to produce and inject poison? Is it safe to dine on puffer fish? Why do Haitian sorcerers and Russian spies need pufferfish? And also what kind of fish was used as a drug in ancient Rome?

Fearless Dogs

In the early 1970s, marine biologist George Losey of the University of Hawaii spent 250 hours underwater observing small lyre-tailed blennies ( Meiacanthus atrodorsalis ) from the dog family ( Blenniidae 90 034 ): they have from a black line extends from each eye, making them appear to have eye makeup applied, and their yellow tails resemble a lyre with fin rays instead of strings. Losey was scuba diving in the central Pacific at Enewetak Atoll and wanted to know how these fish behave in the presence of large predators and how predators react to them.

Losey himself played the role of a large predator, swimming up to the blennies and observing their behavior. Usually the fish at first slowly sailed away from it. When he stopped, the fish would turn and come back, stopping and swimming again until they were right in front of him. The blennies that lived in the crevices of the reef, when Losey approached, left their shelters, swam up to him and looked straight into his eyes. The fish were much smaller than him, up to 11 cm in length, but at the same time they did not seem to be afraid of him at all.

In experimental aquariums on land, Losey observed predatory fish trying to eat blennies. After swallowing one small fish, the groupers immediately began to tremble, shake their heads and awkwardly protrude their jaws forward. A few seconds later, the blenny swam out of the mouth of the predator without any external damage.

The unusual self-confidence of lyre-tailed blennies is partly due to the structure of their teeth. They belong to the group of so-called saber-toothed blennies, carrying a pair of sharp teeth on the lower jaw. However, as Losey discovered in his research on Enewetok, lyre-tailed dogs do more than just bite painfully.

In a 1972 article, Losey describes how he caught two blennies and put them in a “little pocket in his swimming trunks.” Perhaps he had nowhere else to put the fish he caught, but regardless of why he put them there, he soon gained deeply personal insights into the nature of their teeth. These representations, he wrote, were obtained “accidentally as a result of stings on the more tender part of my thigh … the stings were very painful, like a bee sting.”

Losey, like any conscientious scientist, described what happened to his wounds, which first bled for ten minutes and then became inflamed, the area of ​​redness grew from a few millimeters in diameter two minutes after the bite to 10 cm after 15 minutes; the inflammation did not go away for four hours, and the skin puncture site remained inflamed for another 12 hours. “For several days, the tissues were somewhat hardened,” he noted. Losey learned from his own experience that this species of saber-toothed blenny was undeniably poisonous.

Armory of Defense

As it turns out, fish are the most venomous vertebrates. Ten years ago, it was thought that only about 200 species of fish were poisonous. But on closer examination, it turned out that there are approximately 3,000 types of fish that you definitely don’t want to put into your bathing suit.

Poisons are another aspect of the amazing evolutionary success of fish, a great way to not become anyone’s dinner. Like electric organs, poisons have repeatedly appeared in different groups of fish in the course of evolution (at least 18 times). There are poisonous catfish and chimeras, bull sharks and rays, sigans and surgeon fish. Given the large number of species, a person is more likely to suffer from a poisonous fish than to be bitten by a snake or scratched by the poisonous spurs of a platypus.

The good news is that the venom of most fish probably won’t kill you. But there is also a bad one – in the world of poisonous creatures, their bites and injections are among the most painful. With the exception of a group of single-jawed eels (family Monognathidae ), about which we know little, fish use their chemical weapons not for attack, but only for defense, and predators quickly learn to avoid them. When Losey placed the blennies in their trunks, they got scared and realized they were in trouble; fish used their hollow teeth to inject a whole cocktail of chemical toxic substances to intimidate the offender.

Recent studies show that the ancestors of the saber-toothed blennies developed huge fangs in order to bite larger fish. Later in the evolutionary history of this group, some fish, including the lyre-tailed blennies, developed venom and a deep groove in their teeth through which it flows like a syringe needle. This unusual evolutionary path (first teeth, then poison) is characteristic of poisonous fish. The snakes first received the venom and presumably dripped it on their victims; they subsequently developed fangs as a more efficient way of delivering venom.

In a 2017 study, the venom from this fish species was found to contain, among other things, opioid peptides that bind to the same neuronal receptors as heroin and morphine. This poison causes a sharp (up to 40%) decrease in blood pressure. If your blood pressure drops that much, you will probably feel dizzy and need to sit down. Similarly, blenny venom seems to confuse predators, making them weak, making it easier for small fish to get out of their mouths, as Losey observed in his research.

As a general rule, if you avoid poisonous fish, they will leave you alone. Some, like lionfish, use bright colors to warn that they are poisonous, so they are easy to spot. However, many others are well camouflaged and live on the sea or river bottom. On the beaches of Britain, people sometimes stumble upon sea dragons (genus Trachinus ) hiding in the sand. Like most venomous fish, they inject their venom through modified fin rays. Similar painful injuries occur on the coasts of the United States, where starfish live. And if you step on a stingray, it will swing its tail and pierce your leg with a poisonous spike.

If you are walking along the bottom, where there may be stingrays, it is better to walk with a shuffling gait so as not to step on the stingray and let it hear your steps and swim away. And if you’ve been pricked by any fish, the best treatment is hot water (not scalding water) to denature and deactivate the venom proteins.

The most dangerous poisonous fish are probably warthogs (genus Synanceia ), skillfully pretending to be stones overgrown with algae. Even if you know they are around, they are almost impossible to spot. And this is very dangerous: so, stone fish ( Synanceia verrucosa ) bears a row of 13 poisonous spikes on its back (in 1766, Carl Linnaeus gave one of the species a very appropriate name Synanceia horrida , a terrifying wart).

Stonefish ( Synanceia verrucosa )

Every year hundreds of people in Australia accidentally step on warts; the weight of the human body compresses the ducts with poison at the base of the spikes, and they shoot in the leg. This causes terrible pain that may not go away for several days. While there is an antidote, it’s best to watch where you’re going and not touch anything on the coral reef, because it’s easy to be fooled by the wart’s flawless camouflage.

Dangerous delicacy

Another group of fish is not known for its ability to inject poison, but for its poisonous innards – it is enough to eat such a fish to die. For centuries, people have been incredibly intrigued by pufferfish: the ancient Egyptians carved their images on stone, and Japanese restaurant goers still pay a lot of money and risk their lives to taste them. Until laws were passed requiring chefs to train for years and be licensed to cook pufferfish, dozens of people in Japan died every year from fugu fish poisoning. Even today, two or three unfortunate (or reckless) eaters die every year.

Pufferfish are so dangerous because of the poisonous alkaloid tetrodotoxin. It accumulates in the liver, genitals, skin, and intestines of pufferfish, parts that skilled chefs can carve. One milligram of this potent neurotoxin – a droplet the size of a needle tip – kills an adult human. Heating does not deactivate it. There is no antidote. Pufferfish do not produce tetrodotoxin themselves, but obtain it from food containing bacteria that produce this poison. If they are fed food without such bacteria, then the fish will gradually lose their toxicity. In this way, fish farmers have obtained pufferfish that are safe to eat, but they are unpopular with Japanese restaurant patrons who want to tickle their nerves by eating wild pufferfish.

Other animals containing tetrodotoxin should also be avoided. In 2009, five dogs in New Zealand died after eating sea slugs washed up on a beach. Disturb the blue-ringed octopus ( Hapalochlaena maculosa ), one of the world’s most venomous creatures, and you’re guaranteed a quick death from a small, often painless bite from this brightly colored creature, whose saliva contains tetrodotoxin.

The riddle has recently been solved how newts, octopuses, sea slugs, pufferfish and all the rest are not poisoned by their own poison. The mechanism of action of tetrodotoxin is that this substance binds to sodium channels in the membranes of nerve cells and prevents them from transmitting signals. Communication between the nervous system and muscles is blocked, paralysis occurs and often death from suffocation.

It turned out that stopping the effects of tetrodotoxin is quite simple. All that is needed is a genetic mutation that changes a few amino acid building blocks that make up protein sodium channels. As a result, tetrodotoxin does not bind or block signals, so even in the presence of poison, the nerves will work as usual, and the animals will be resistant to its effects.

Such resistance to poisons has appeared several times in the evolution of pufferfish, and each time the same genetic mutations changed the same amino acids in the channel proteins. Under conditions of severe restrictions, in this case the need to resist the poison and maintain the functioning of the nervous system, natural selection can be extremely predictable and repetitively change the same genes over and over again.

Snakes live in California, with great pleasure devouring poisonous newts containing tetrodotoxin due to the same mutation in the sodium channels of nerve cells. They are so resistant to this poison that they can only die from such a dose, which is enough to kill 600 people.

Tetrodotoxin resistance gives pufferfish many advantages. It expands their diet, allowing them to eat food containing it, and provides powerful chemical defenses. Male pufferfish even developed a sort of addiction to tetrodotoxin over time. Females smear it on their eggs, scaring off predators, and males swim by the smell.

Lady Pufferfish

Eugenie Clark is best known as Lady Shark. In the 1940s, she embarked on an unbeaten path, deciding to devote herself to a scientific career at a time when women rarely engaged in science, much less went on expeditions alone. She was the first to show that sharks are by no means mindless killing machines, they are able to learn and remember and are no more stupid than many other vertebrates. But Eugenie didn’t just study sharks. She also earned the nickname Lady Pufferfish.

When Clarke was finishing her graduate studies, she had the opportunity to explore the far seas. At the end of the war, many Pacific islands came under US control. The US Naval Research Administration wanted to learn more about these distant lands and announced a call for scientists interested in this work. Eugenie applied, and despite the conviction of some that working in such remote places was not an appropriate occupation for an unmarried woman, she was given two weeks to assemble the equipment.

Her mission was to investigate ciguatera, fish poisoning, a common problem in tropical waters that poses a problem for US troops stationed in the Pacific. If you eat a fresh poisonous fish, and not rotten as a result of decomposition, then you can experience a wide variety of symptoms. Within a day or so, there may be bouts of nausea and diarrhea, abdominal pain, cramps, and paralysis, as well as more unusual sensations, such as feeling hot when it is cold around and vice versa, and the belief that soon all your teeth will fall out.

In addition to puffer fish tetrodotoxin, it turned out that there are other fish poisons: ciguatoxin, saxitoxin, and as yet unidentified compounds that can cause hallucinations. Eugenie’s job, which involved collecting fish and sending samples to a lab for chemical analysis, was to help determine which fish were safe to eat.

In June 1949, she boarded a military seaplane and sailed towards the setting sun, propellers howling, to spend four months hopping from island to island in search of poisonous fish.

Her first stop was the island of Guam, where she immediately took advantage of the knowledge and skills of the local fishermen. She met a man with a large fish trap made of wire mesh and bamboo, inside which were seven fairly large pufferfish. “I pointed at them enthusiastically,” Eugenie wrote, “but the fisherman shook his head, gestured that he was eating, and then clutched his stomach with a grimace of pain on his face.” It was the kind of fish Eugenie was looking for.

In the east, Eugenie visited the outlying islands of the Palau archipelago, traveling on local ferries and copra boats. She stayed in small fishing villages where she learned to hunt fish with a spear, and the local women danced for her and taught her how to chew betel nut without littering the floor. The men helped her find fish, which she drew for them in the sand.

Wherever Eugenie went, she looked for stories about poisonous fish. This is how she learned about the sigan, a fish that the locals called “mias” and which she ate many times without any consequences. According to rumors, in a village on Babeldaob, the largest island in Palau, it was dangerous to eat Mias. Eugenie went to check it out, accompanied by a local spear-hunting champion who had been catching sigans at night when they napped in the seaweed in the shallows.

The villagers claimed that now this fish is completely safe. According to them, from October to January, you can’t eat it, because it will make you sleepy, irritable, or make you laugh uncontrollably. At this time, the wind blows from the east all the time and a special green algae grows off the coast. Probably, the sigans eat some kind of poisonous substance in the composition of this algae, it accumulates in their tissues and makes them deadly this season. But Eugenie was there in August, too early to be drugged by the Sigans. She tried a few pieces of raw meas anyway, but she didn’t even have a headache.

Palauans are not the only ones aware of the intoxicating effects of certain fish. Sarpa, or salpa ( Sarpa salpa ), which is known by several names, lives in the Mediterranean Sea. One of them is a dream fish, and deservedly so. In 1994, a man vacationing on the French Cote d’Azur in Cannes was hospitalized after eating this fish and it seemed to him that angry animals were roaring at him, and huge insects were crawling around the car. The next day he fully recovered from this meal.

In 2004, also on the Mediterranean coast of France, an elderly man cooked sleep fish for himself, and two hours later he began to be haunted by human screams, and for the next two nights he had terrifying nightmares. There is evidence that the ancient Romans used this hallucinogenic fish as a recreational drug. But what if the mind-altering properties of poisonous fish are specifically used to send someone into a catatonic state for months or even years? Could this horrifying scenario be real?

Mystery of the Living Dead

In the 1980s, in a heated debate about zombies – myth or reality – a topic arose associated with dry powdered extracts of Caribbean pufferfish. At the beginning of the 20th century (when the US military occupied Haiti), Western culture first became interested in these legends. The Haitian religion of voodoo, which combines elements of East African magic and Catholic rituals, has been misnamed voodoo and corrupted by American culture. It was in Haiti that they came up with the idea of ​​piercing wax figures of enemies with needles and believed that dead people could wake up and roam the world, causing unimaginable troubles.

In Haiti, the zombie threat is considered very real. Many children are not afraid of zombies themselves, but that they themselves can be turned into these monsters. They are brought up to believe that breaking the rules of the Voodoon secret societies is punished by being turned into zombies. The priest makes a living dead out of the wicked, keeps his soul in a jar and raises him from the grave to become a slave, deprived of his own will. Making zombies out of people is prohibited by state law. Trying to convince someone that they died and came back to life as a zombie is tantamount to attempted murder. Burying someone alive counts as actual murder, whether or not the victim survived.

In 1982, a graduate student from Harvard University came to Haiti to learn how to create zombies. Wade Davis was going to get the potions that the Voodoon priests used to zombify. His supervisors at Harvard were convinced that these mixtures could transform modern medicine and surgery. Imagine that you can plunge a person into a kind of coma, introducing him into an insensible state, and then wake him up at any moment. Even researchers at NASA are interested in these substances, which could possibly keep astronauts in a state of suspended animation during long journeys through the galaxy.

In this strange mix of folklore and science fiction, Davis spent several months in Haiti and returned with eight samples of zombie-producing potions. He also wanted to order zombies and see what the priests were doing. No doubt to the great relief of the Harvard Ethics Commission, this did not happen. But, even though he never became an accomplice in the attempted murder, his work caused a scandal that did not subside for several years.

Davis confidently declared that he had solved the mystery of the zombies. He reported that the secret to convincing someone that they died and came back to life in the form of an eternal slave lies in an explosive mixture of plant and animal extracts, including tissues from frogs, centipedes, tarantulas and human remains. This concoction, prepared by Voodoon priests, causes poisoning that looks like death. Other potions then keep the victim in a permanent zombie-like state. The key ingredient in the death potion, according to Davis, was pufferfish tetrodotoxin.

The Harvard scam

A great quarrel immediately broke out in scientific circles, and Davis’ arguments were smashed by pundits from all sides. Ethnographers were shocked by his methods. In their opinion, he spent too little time in Haiti. He spoke to only a few people, including a man who claimed he was a zombie himself, but Davis did not speak Creole and could have missed important details in the translation. He was unable to prove that there was any connection between secret societies practicing Wudong magic and zombification. And how can you be sure that the priests simply did not take the opportunity to earn some money by selling fake potions to a naive foreigner?

Davis managed to anger not only anthropologists, but also biologists. His Ph.D. thesis did not mention any chemical analysis, but he still stated the key role of tetrodotoxin in potions to create zombies. It was based solely on the words of the priests, who mentioned several types of pufferfish as ingredients. It later turned out that Davis analyzed the potions, but found no traces of tetrodotoxin in them and did not mention his negative results in his dissertation (he eventually confessed, but with the caveat that the tests were carried out incorrectly and the results were unreliable). Toxicologists tested two of the eight potions, but the results were not conclusive: they found trace amounts of tetrodotoxin, but they did not cause toxicity even in mice.

To his credit, Davis made it clear that he thought the potions only worked on people who believed they could turn into zombies. He later explained that priests do not prepare potions according to exact recipes and, naturally, the amount of tetrodotoxin in them varies. Some potions are too weak and do not work, others are too strong and immediately kill the victim, and some, as in the fairy tale about Goldilocks, are just right for creating zombies.

However, Davis still had no evidence that the main ingredient for creating zombies was pufferfish venom. Instead, he turned the argument on its head and demanded that skeptics rebut his claims.

Everything was completely confused, the details were lost in the journalistic fiction that accompanied the academic controversy. Davis turned his dissertation into a bestseller called The Serpent and the Rainbow , which was made into a movie. In the Hollywood version, filmed by Wes Craven immediately after his 1984 blockbuster A Nightmare on Elm Street, Davis’ character was buried alive and turned into a zombie. Davis publicly disavowed the film, calling it “one of the worst Hollywood films ever made.”

Wade Davis stopped studying zombies and turned to other things, without providing any reliable data on the actual properties of pufferfish. It is quite possible that the Haitian voodoo priests are preparing potions from dried and crushed pufferfish to create slaves for themselves. People do strange things to animals, like making magic amulets out of pangolin scales or eating tiger bones in the hope that they will make them great lovers, but that doesn’t mean these things work.

Not a beginner in poisoning

It’s much safer to use tetrodotoxin as a murder weapon. At the end of Ian Fleming’s fifth James Bond novel, From Russia with Love, a special agent passes out after being stabbed with a tetrodotoxin-coated spike hidden in the shoe of Soviet agent Rosa Klebb. Fortunately, Bond, as usual, survived.

In the real world, in 2011, a Brit visiting Sierra Leone was apparently killed by blowfish poison. He died suddenly under mysterious circumstances a few days after having lunch with a business partner, and tetrodotoxin was found in his system. During the proceedings, the pathologist refused to rule out the possibility of a crime.

In 2012, a man in Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison after he posed as a scientist and bought purified pufferfish extract from a chemical supply company. According to Chicago Tribune , the buyer planned to kill his wife with tetrodotoxin and claim compensation from her death insurance. If he had given her poison, his plan might have worked: he had 98 milligrams of tetrodotoxin, enough to kill hundreds of people.
IQ

November 5, 2020

Fragment

Biology

which animals Kazakhstani tourists most often suffer from

Whoever has bitten Kazakhstanis during their holidays abroad. The leaders in the “biting” rating – Southeast Asia are the Kingdom of Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Such bites lead to serious consequences, and allergic reactions.

According to Esquire, analysts at IC London-Almaty analyzed customer complaints that were associated with attacks of various animals or insects abroad from 2011 to 2021. As it turned out, most often our compatriots are bitten. Such for ten years was 1.7% of the total number of insured events with vacationers. Naturally, these are only those who applied for a refund.

Based on their appeals, it was possible to identify the top five most dangerous animals, because of which Kazakhstani tourists most often sought medical help abroad.

Jellyfish

This species of marine inhabitants is a particularly frequent reason for seeking medical help. Travelers to the most popular destinations – Turkey, Egypt, Thailand, Greece, Spain – are at risk. The consequences of a jellyfish bite can be very unpleasant: burns, sharp pain, reddening of the skin, blistering.

Approximately one in five vacationers at sea has an unpleasant experience with jellyfish. Particularly affected by jellyfish are children, in whom burns can cause an allergic reaction. In any case, if bitten, the victim with allergic reactions should contact the nearest clinic.

Dogs

Dogs have bitten Kazakh tourists in various countries, such as India and Thailand. In all cases, the victims were sent to the nearest clinic, where they received the necessary assistance. Without insurance, the cost of outpatient medical care in such cases will cost an average of $100-300. But in this case, they will have to pay. It will not be possible to do without medical help from a doctor even after a mild bite – the victim must receive vaccination against rabies and tetanus.

Insects

Insects are the most numerous class of animals with over 1 million species. It is not surprising that it was because of them that clients turned to the insurance company in Turkey, Thailand, Greece, Bulgaria, Vietnam, and Spain. Insects often overtook vacationers on the beaches and in the water, and ticks found their “victims” almost everywhere.

Pisces

Pisces are not at all afraid of humans, and their original coloring “disposes to communication”, so many people want to touch the fish and play with it in the water column. However, many fish have venom glands in various places, with which they inject or bite and inject poison into wounds.