Another Victim Of Deadly Cone Shell
p. 45 · Read in the full issue
Deadly Cone Shell
At Emae in the New Hebrides recently, a young girl collecting shell fish on the reef with her sisters suddenly felt a sharp pain on picking up what is thought to be a Conus geographus.
Returning home the youngster suffered from violent headaches and died shortly afterwards.
It was the third known death from a Conus sting in the Western Pacific in recent years.
The previous ones occurred in New Caledonia in 1960 and 1963.
There may have been others in the past that were wrongly diagnosed.
In 1962, a 23-year-old Vietna mese, who was stung when he put a Conus in the pocket of his shirt, was saved by prompt medical treatment.
Conus geographus is one of several species of cone shell which are known to have fatally stung humans.