.jpeg)
These angry looking fish inflate through buccal pumping (sucking in water - or air if stranded on land) with expanded elastic stomachs. They can't remain this way for too long as oxygen debt begins to build up and staying inflated uses 5 times more oxygen than resting.
Oxygen is still able to diffuse into the gills but at a limited rate, so pufferfish are not 'holding their breath', but the demand for oxygen isn't matched by the diffusion rate. A study showed that pufferfish have a mean metabollic recovery time of 5.6 hours after expanding.
Pufferfish have something in common with the blue ringed octopus – both of them contain TTX. This means pufferfish are very dangerous to eat, especially because cooking does not reduce effect of the toxin (it only takes 0.002g of TTX to kill a human – For legal reasons, please don't test this :]).
REFERENCES
'Pufferfish: An underwater balloon of death?'
Ella Davies in association with the Natural History Museum
Marine Tetrodotoxin as a Risk of Human Health
Anna Madejska, Miroslaw Michalski and Jacek Osek
Date Published: 15th March 2024
No comments:
Post a Comment