![]() ![]() ![]() They like to eat reef fish and bottom-dwelling invertebrates. It has a very large mouth with powerful jaws that can strikeout and suck down its prey whole extremely quickly, in less than 15 milliseconds. The stonefish is not an active predator but rather lays in wait for its prey to swim by. Often the only clue to its presence is its highly arched mouth pointing upwards and the eye swellings. Although naturally a brown or grey color it can take on other colors to fit in with its surroundings. It may even be covered in algae thus enhancing its disguise. It is a bottom dweller and is a master of camouflage that can be found partially buried in the sand or hiding among coral blocks or rocks. The stonefish is a clumsy mover that does not travel very far. Its main predators are sharks, rays, and moray eels. Rather it uses its venom as protection and to avoid predation. It will not chase you with the intention of harming you. However, this fish is not out to get you. If there are spines in the wound do NOT try to remove them but simply pad around them. First aid involves placing the affected area in very hot water, as hot as the patient can stand, for between 20 and 30 minutes (not more than 30 minutes) as the heat helps to break down the proteins in the venom. Stepping on or accidentally touching the spines of this fish can cause you vomiting, fever, swelling, excruciating pain, difficulty breathing, and tissue destruction around the entry wound so immediate medical attention is imperative. It is officially the world’s most venomous fish and the venom it injects can kill an adult in less than an hour. The stonefish has 13 dorsal spines, each containing 2 venom sacs, 3 venomous spines on its anal fin, and 2 venomous spines on each of its pelvic fins. This is not surprising when you consider that scorpionfish, lionfish, and stonefish all belong to the same family (Scorpaenidae).Īll members of this family have similar characteristics in that they all have venomous spines. These would be the scorpionfish, of which there are 4 distinct species and the filamented devilfish. Red Sea Stonefish - The master of disguise B elieve it or not, there is only 1 species of stonefish in the Red Sea (Synanceia Verrucosa) although at least 5 other species are often mistaken for stonefish by divers. ET Wednesday to include Zoltan Takacs' thoughts.įollow Brian Clark Howard on Twitter and Google+. ET Tuesday to include Bryan Fry's thoughts, and at 11:30 a.m. ET Wednesday to include a discussion about the uncertainty of the kind of fish fighting the sea snake, at 9:00 p.m. Trippe says the sea snake attacked the fish again as soon as he released them back into the water. "Venom toxins are among the most potent and precision-targeted molecules on Earth," Takacs adds. "This sea snake-fish encounter is a work-in-progress in 'nature's research lab' and this is how future medications are being 'designed,'" says Takacs, who notes that several drugs have been developed from snake venoms, for major diseases from hypertension to heart attack. WATCH: The stonefish hides on the sea bottom, undetectable to its prey.īy witnessing such predator-prey encounters, we get a window into evolution in action, says Zoltan Takacs, a herpetologist and pharmacologist who is the founder of the World Toxin Bank and an explorer with National Geographic. It's possiblly not really a stonefish, as Trippe thought, but actually a species of harmless frogfish, says Bryan Fry, a National Geographic explorer and biologist who studies venom at the University of Queensland. It's also difficult to identify the fish. But he agrees with Trippe that an elegant sea snake ( Hydrophis elegans) is a possibility, based on the coloring and location. It’s hard to identify the species of sea snake from photos, Murphy says, because the precise scale counts are often needed to distinguish similar types. Murphy, a sea snake expert at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. “I knew this was dangerous."įish are a regular part of the diet of many sea snakes, says John C. "I'm silly but not mad,” the spear fisherman, Rick Trippe, told BBC. He grabbed the animals out of the water for a quick picture, then released them. What is rare is for such encounters to be recorded.Īn Australian spear fisherman happened upon the sea snake/fish fight last Thursday off Darwin, in northern Australia. Photographs capturing a battle royale between what may be two of the ocean’s most venomous creatures-a sea snake and what is possibly a stonefish-have gone viral, but such face-offs probably aren't all that rare. ![]()
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