The world’s most venomous fish – Stonefish!
The stonefish, also known as Synanceia are a part of the Synanceiinae family and can be found in the tropical water of Indian sea and some parts of the Pacific. The stonefish are a master of camouflage, it almost looks like a coral or a stone when they are totally still, and therefore really hard to spot. The scorpionfish are a predator and when it hunts it lay still for long times and waiting for a fish to swim by and then the stonefish strike, due to its bad develop swimming. When the stonefish hunts it can take fish that are almost the same size at itself.
If you for some reason will get stung by a stonefish the venom attacks cells, blood and heart which lead to great pain and can make us humans paralysis, in the worst case we will die. A healthy person will not likely die but need to seek medical care as soon as possible and might have to amputate body parts to stop the venoms spreading. The stonefish have thirteen spikes on there back that linked to tow venoms sacs filled protein venom that protects them. If the stories are true then it must be very, very painful to get stung.
“I got stung on the finger by a Stonefish. It feels nothing like a bee sting, imagine having each knuckle, then the wrist, elbow and shoulder being hit in turn with a sledgehammer in around one hour. Then about an hour later imagine taking a real kick to both kidneys for about 45 minutes so that you can’t stand or straighten up. i got sensation back in my finger after a few days but had recurrent kidney pains periodically for several years afterwards.” Rebecca, Sarah. “The Most Excruciating Pain Known To Man.” Scienceray. (29 Dec 2010): 1. Print. http://scienceray.com/biology/zoology/the-most-excruciating-pain-known-to-man
But the likelihood to get stung of a stonefish is small in relation how many stonefish there are out there.
Inexperienced divers in tropical water often mistaking the more common fish scorpionfish for a stonefish when they talking about what they have seen. The way to separate this two is that the scorpionfish have a shape of a “normal fish” with fins, tail and the mouth forward, when the stonefish have a rounder shape of the body and the mouth are in a more upper angel.
As a few final words, if you follow your training and do not touch anything under water you will be safe, you might swim by close to a stonefish without even know it. But if you by mistake, or in an emergency need to touch and grab hold of the corals, mind where you putting your hands.
Kon-Tiki Thailand 