Puffer fish

Following the crabs of June (reference 1) and the ticks of yesterday (reference 2), I now offer a special variety of puffer fish which has migrated into the Mediterranean from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal and is causing trouble in the eastern fisheries there, already under plenty of stress for the more usual reason of overfishing. This from the Financial Times (the one with the irritating advertisements) at reference 3.

A fish which is well known for containing lots of a serious toxin, TTX, a neurotoxin, to be found at references 6 and 7. And which works by blocking the sodium channels important in the generation of action potentials in certain neurons. Including those responsible for working the muscles which drive the lungs.

A toxin which, on the one hand, causes a lot of stomach upsets and worse, especially in the fish eating parts of the Far East, but which is also used for pain relief. There is a suggestion that there is a certain amount of bravado around eating puffer fish - and their livers - among certain Japanese males.

The source of all this TTX was something of a puzzle, but it seems to have now been run down to various bacteria involved with the TTX carrying animals involved. It seems likely that these animals exploit the TTX as a defense against predation - while somehow neutralising the toxic action on themselves. All a fine field of enquiry for neuro-pharmacologists - amongst others.

A fish which is a bottom feeder equipped with very powerful jaws, presumably to enable it to deal with the shells of many gastropods. I learn that some of the shell fish which I see stuck to the rocks of, for example the beach at St. Helen's on the Isle of Wight, are related to the slugs and snails that I might find in the garden of our rented cottage. Gastropods all, for which see reference 5.

Gastropods inhabit an extraordinary range of environments, including marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems. They occur in gardens, woodlands, deserts, mountains, rivers, lakes, estuaries, mudflats, intertidal zones, the deep sea, hydrothermal vents, and even in parasitic niches.

Not to be confused with Bivalves, their next door neighbour among the Molluscs.

The fish can also bite holes in fishing nets, a nuisance for fishermen, and bite through empty drink tins, less of a nuisance, but more spectacular.

PS 1: once again, we have a taxonomic confusion with Pleuranacanthus sceleratus, which name crops up in reference 7. This from reference 8.

Google explains that the 'pleura' bit here is nothing to do with lungs, despite the action of TTX on lung function, rather it is to do with the row of spines running along the sides of these fish. And he goes on to confirm the link to the popular garden plant.

PS 2: on TTX, it might have been interesting to take a look at reference 9, but Taylor & Francis want £50 if you want to see any more than the abstract. On the other hand, Google have enough access to be able to offer an AI summary - and to turn up alternative sources.

Logged in Google is quite interesting on all this.

Further down the conversation.

And even if the present scene is a bit of a mess, it does looks as if the model for fair payment for the results of academic - that is to say mostly publicly funded - research is shifting. 

And as a retired leftie, it is only proper to point to the contradictions inherent in a small number of tech giants and academic publishers on the one side and a large number of academics (and other researchers) on the other.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/06/modigliani.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/tick-time.html.

Reference 3: Greece’s toxic puffer fish invasion: A fish that can bite soda cans in half is tearing through nets and livelihoods, Eleni Varvitsioti, Financial Times - 2026. 

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagocephalus_sceleratus. The source of the image at the top of this post.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastropod.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin.

Reference 7: Tetrodotoxin – Distribution and Accumulation in Aquatic Organisms, and Cases of Human Intoxication - Tamao Noguchi, Osamu Arakawa - 2008.

Reference 8: https://www.marinespecies.org/. World register of marine species: An authoritative classification and catalogue of marine names.

Reference 9: Pharmacology of tetrodotoxin - Narahashi, T. - 2001.