Noxious Marine Animals of the Central and Western North Pacific.

• Main Authors: Fish, Charles J., Cobb, Mary Curtis
• Other Authors: WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION MA
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1949
• Subjects: Biology; Food; Food Service and Nutrition; Toxicology; Biological Oceanography; (*SEAFOOD; TOXICITY); (*MARINE BIOLOGY; PACIFIC OCEAN); (*FISHES; POISONS); POISONING; CORAL REEFS; SHARKS; ECHINODERMATA; AQUATIC ANIMALS; ECOLOGY; REPTILES; PLANKTON; CEPHALOPODA; DISTRIBUTION; PACIFIC OCEAN ISLANDS; HAZARDS; TROPICAL REGIONS; BARRACUDA; MORAY EELS; OCTOPI; TELEOSTS; Arctic; Pacific
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/AD0496208; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0496208

Poisonous and otherwise dangerous marine animals in certain Pacific areas offer a serious problem to inexperienced personnel, and each year claim many victims. Inedible and venomous forms in the Central and West Pacific are for the most part neritic residents of the warm coral reef belt. There appear to be few if any poisonous teleosts in the pelagic high seas fauna. Savage animals occur both on the high seas and along coasts, but here again all recorded attacks have been in warm waters with temperatures above 65 F. Temperate, boreal and arctic waters are relatively free from dangerous toxic species except for occasional invasions of southern migrants during the summer months. In the few venomous forms endemic in both warm and cool climates, toxic potency tends to increase approaching the tropics. Within the tropical Pacific zone it is estimated that from 5 to 10 per cent of the neritic teleosts are at times inedible. Those reported to date belong to 21 families. Some exhibit marked regional, seasonal and age variation in toxicity. Where seasonal variability occurs there is said to be a positive correlation between toxic potency and gonad activity, but the sources of the poisonous alkaloid and conditions favoring or inhibiting its presence are not as yet understood. The Japanese have placed an over-all mortality from paralytic fish poisoning at from two to three per cent.