Fishkeeper poisoned by dead fish
Many members of the Tetraodontiformes contain tetrodotoxin.
The curator of a public aquarium has been poisoned by a dead porcupine puffer fish after he sustained a series of minor pricks from its spines during an autopsy.According to a paper from a team of toxicologists from the National Poisons Information Centre in The Netherlands, which has been published in the latest issue of the journal Clinical Toxicology, the curator suffered from tetrodotoxin or TTX intoxication as a result of the pricks he received.
Although the fish was dead, the man came into direct contact with organ fluids, allowing the tetrodotoxin to enter his system through the punctures the spines had left in his skin. His symptoms included dizziness, headache, numbness, paresthesias (a loss of sensation) and paresis (a loss of movement of the limbs).
Tetrodotoxin - or anhydrotetrodotoxin 4-epitetrodotoxin to use its formal name - is a potent neurotoxin found in many members of the Order Tetraodontiformes, which includes pufferfishes, porcupinefishes, trigger fish and sun fish.
While most widely known from tetraodontiform fish, tetrodotoxin is actually the product of bacteria, including Pseudoalteromonas tetraodonis and occurs in other organisms including some flatworms, star fish and the Blue-ringed octopus.
Small doses of tetrodotoxin can induce respiratory problems that frequently lead to death, especially if the toxin has been consumed. There is no antidote and death can occur anywhere between 20 minutes and eight hours after intoxication.
For more information on the study see the paper: van Gorcum TF, Janse M, Leenders ME, de Vries I, Meulenbelt J (2006) - Intoxication following minor stabs from the spines of a porcupine fish. Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2006;44(4):391-3.
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Matt Clarke: 1.9.2006Views: Read 7,794 times
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"The paper did not mention that he had died, so I assume he's survived relatively unscathed. Really bad cases of tetrodotoxism typically result in paralysis and respiratory failure, then death, and neither were mentioned in the list of symptoms.
A lot of people don't realise it, but even some commonly sold aquarium puffers contain tetrodotoxin. When I worked in the trade, a colleague forgot to reconnect a guard on the filter outlet of a sales aquarium and a couple of tiny Figure-eight puffers shot down the pipe and into a sump tank below. A couple of pike cichlids living in the sump tank subsequently died after trying to swallow the puffers. "
Date: Friday September 1st, 2006, 2:54 pm
"I've experienced the same thing in my shop years ago. A customer bought an adult male Jack Dempsey and didn't tell me that he had figure 8 puffers. It tried to eat one and was dead within an hour of being introduced."
Posted by: Jeremy Gay - 3 years, 2 months agoDate: Friday September 15th, 2006, 12:52 pm
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 | Editor-in-Chief, Matt Clarke, writes the regular Interesting Imports column on rare and unusual fish in the UK aquarium trade. He's kept fish for 30 years and holds a degree, two higher degrees and two diplomas in fish biology, taxonomy and computational biology. |
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"Did the scientist survive the poisoning?"
Posted by: Steve Windsor - 3 years, 2 months agoDate: Friday September 1st, 2006, 2:14 pm