Toxic blowfish. (Photo: IEO)
Toxic puffer species sighting and capture grows in Canarian waters
SPAIN
Monday, September 18, 2017, 20:00 (GMT + 9)
During July and especially in August, scientists from the Oceanographic Centre of the Canary Islands of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) have received numerous calls on sightings and catches of the species Lagocephalus lagocephalus, a very toxic puffer fish if consumed by the population.
It is not a new species in the Canaries, but its populations seem to have increased considerably. "The reasons for this increase are not easy to explain, although they seem to be motivated by natural processes of leeway or dispersal of their populations," explains Pedro J. Pascual Alayón, a researcher at the Oceanographic Centre of the Canary Islands of IEO.
This species has a very pronounced pelagic character and is distributed throughout the ocean. It is a very voracious species and is displaced forming large banks that can be sighted both on the high seas and in coastal areas.
The presence of toxic puffer fish is not new in Spain. In October 2014, the Directorate General of Fisheries Economics of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment issued a notice among all the fishing departments of the country warning the associations of the presence in the Mediterranean waters of a species of the same family of balloon fish: "There is an alert that a poisonous fish is being caught by a trawler from Denia, which contains tetrodotoxin, a paralyzing nervous system toxin (...) It is requested that the appropriate measures are taken given the toxicity of this species to avoid its introduction into the marketing chain ... At that time the species was Lagocephalus sceleratus which, although it is not the same species, is also toxic.
In laboratory experiments performed with mice and rats, the toxicity of this species, which rapidly affects the bloodstream, has been demonstrated, reducing the number of red cells: hemoglobin and hematocrit. In rats and mice, anemia is caused by an important hemolytic action on erythrocytes. It has even been shown that, once stewed, such water is more toxic than fresh fish itself so it should not be consumed.
In the Canary Islands four species of toxic puffer fish can be found: Guinean puffer (Sphoeroides marmoratus), Caribbean sharpnose-puffer (Canthigaster rostrata), blunthead puffer (Sphoeroides pachygaster) and oceanic puffer (Lagocephalus lagocephalus).
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