Poisonous

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Fish Mystery

FSH poisoning is a recurr© happening and subject of i terest throughout the Souj Seas, but it is douooful if Mr. C.

Smith’s reported assertion, in F© ruary PIM, “Beware of daniva wr scales in reverse!” will be accept! by serious investigators of this ul solved mystery.

If Mr. Smith can produce od specimen of this tasty, silvery litf fish with “some scales running fro head to tail, and some in the i verse direction,” it is likely that, 0 many marine biologists will resit their appointments; and (b) Darw will turn in his grave.

It is easy to imagine the übiqut ous flies “avoiding the oddly seal fish like the plague” but dififici; to understand how Mr. Smitd worthy ancestors could unerringj pick out the “baddies” from a suj stantial catch of these tiny-scalj fish.

Dr. Guy Loison, Health Resean Officer to the South Pacific Cok mission, reviewed this subject of ff poisoning competently in the Sl< Bulletin of October, 1955, and urg further research to determine caim and cures.

Amongst a wealth of island fis lore several basic facts are revealj in Dr. Loison’s article: • Frequently the same type fish is poisonous in one locality at not in another. • The maximum concentrate of toxins is in the liver and i testines of the fish. • Few fish, large or small, appe< to be immune from toxicity at sou time or place. #On some islands a majority ' fish species are toxic (e.g., 75 i cent, on Johnson Island) most the time. • Islands long immune from ca* of fish poisoning are subject sudden epidemics (e.g., Fannii Island, 1946-47). • Fish poisoning predominates e tropical seas and notably in t coral atoll groups.

O The chemical nature of t toxin is still unknown. It is neitll; protein, protamine nor alkaloid. • All attempts to find a deciss remedy for fish poisoning haj failed.

According to an Americi: authority on the subject, Dr. Brv W. Halstead, fish poisoning definite originates in the diet of the fish as research should be directed towa:i the analysis of stomach contents Present scientific opinion favac a vegetable origin and the poisi could well be of planktonic ong

already proven in the case of nyaulax catanella, a plankton ,t forms long rusty-coloured trails the sea. unongst the 300 species reported poisonous, or potentially so, the t known are the toad—or swelll —box-fish, moon-fish, porcupine i, trigger-fish, and barracuda, 'rom the economic view, the :ey of fish poisoning will need to ippear before the fishing industry be fully developed in the Pacific.