Evolution of the Blowfish

"To humans, tetrodotoxin is deadly, up to 1,200 times more poisonous than cyanide. There is enough toxin in one pufferfish to kill 30 adult humans, and there is no known antidote."

I thought I would talk about Blowfish today. Sure, they look dangerous with their spines and expanding bodies, but are they actually dangerous? The answer is yes, yes they are. Let's learn a little more about this underwater equivalent to the jackal.

On my 7am snorkel today, I stumbled upon a "hive" of these creatures. At least 8 of them were huddled against the sandy floor, practically invisible. I could not identify which one was the Queen. But it was a wake-up call for me -- these things are breeding, and if I'm going to be spending time in the ocean, I'd better learn about my enemy. As Sun Tzu said in the 18th century, "Though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays." ... Hmmm ...

Incidentally, here is an except from Wikipedia which seems to prove my "eating shells" theory, which you will remember I observed a couple of days ago: "... refers to the four large teeth, fused into an upper and lower plate, which are used for crushing the shells of crustaceans and mollusks, their natural prey." Obviously, a side-effect of eating these shells is that it sharpens their beaks. This is useful for when they swarm together and attack other fish with tougher skin, such as angel-fish, or whale-sharks.

Here are the strengths of the Blowfish, as taken from the same Wikipedia article (which is here ):

STRENGTHS:
- Excellent eyesight: The Blowfish can see you before you see it. This enables it to stalk and surround it's prey, setting up the perfect ambush without being seen.
- Can fill stomach with water and "inflate" itself: Not only does this make the fish look scary, it also exposes the many razor-sharp spikes, which contain ...
- ... tetrodotoxin: A potentially lethal poison (more info here ). Note that the symptoms include paralysis, and there is no known anti-venom.
- Chameleon skin: Similar to the Predator (1987, Arnold Schwarzenegger), the Blowfish has developed the ability to blend into seaweed just as easily as the empty sand of the ocean floor. This is how they can so often remain undetected, until suddenly you realise that 6 of the damn things are right underneath you.

Attack! A Blowfish in Hawaii viscously attacks a camera lens.

Put all these traits together, and you can see why the Blowfish has become one of the most evolved and capable predators in the ocean today.

I will leave you with a sobering statistic -- in 2008, there were 5 deaths from eating Pufferfish, in Japan alone. Worldwide, shark attacks average less than 1 death per year ...