OMG, picture of a bluering on someone's finger...

[kinetic]

IS this real?

https://flic.kr/p/3vBX8

It's insane!

 

[Paradox]

Wow...

He probably didnt know it was deadly. If he was able to upload the picture..it means he was a lucky guy!

 

[tywtly]

Hmm, that guy seems smart!

 

[chrono_war01]

劇毒!!看到請小心.勿觸摸!!!

Translates to:
Highly poisonous!! Beware if spotted, do not touch!!!


..ironic, really.

 

[Thales]

An importer wrote this in the Industry forum on RDO:

I have seen many blue rings handled with no problems. I myself have handled them and feel that there is very little risk involved with them. I have had much more severe reactions from Palythoas, in fact have had to visit the hospital in the Marshall Islands once due to improperly handling Palythoa rocks.

Alex Kerstich did some studies on blue rings once and found that there were at least 5 different sub species of blue rings. His thoughts were that only the larger one found along the Australian coast was a threat. I have watched fishermen pick them out of the rocks with their fingers and hold them tightly in their hands for restraint when catching them. The natives have no fear of them in most islands. Generally if something is dangerous the natives will know and respect them. I have not found that at all the case with blue rings.

I will not bring them in due to the high mortality during shipment and the short life span. I was approached to bring some in for the thread starter but did not want to due to the mortality issue. I think that there is much more of a liability issue with lion fish and stone fish from a health risk view.

 

[Paradox]

I kept one a little over 5 years ago and never really felt threatened by it, but I never got the nerve to let it climb on my hand like that heh.

 

[monty]

An importer wrote this in the Industry forum on RDO:

That sounds quite a bit like the kind of "anecdote escalated to fact" folk wisdom that's frequently wrong. I have no idea who Alex Kerstich is, but from googling he did write a book on marine inverts in the sea of cortez... nothing about blue-rings on the first page of results except what you quoted, though.

I'd trust Roy on details of this more than pretty much anyone else I've heard of. I had the impression that the TTX-producing symbiotic bacteria had been identified, and probably cultured, in at least several of the named blue-ring species... I have no idea about the other species IDed in Norman's book. It certainly seems anecdotally true that they don't bite humans often, and it's even plausible that the small one in the picture would have trouble piercing human skin, and maybe even that in some environments the bacteria doesn't colonize the octo to produce TTX.

Regardless of anecdotal evidence, I'd say it's a stupid thing to bet one's life on. Kinda like saying "I know lots of people who drive without a seat belt, and none of them have died in a car crash, so I'm going to show off driving without a seatbelt to impress my friends" or something. If this guy has decided for himself that he'd prefer to take the risks given the anecdotal evidence, OK, but the tone seems to imply "and I'm going to scoff at all you wimpy sissies who worry about this," which seems irresponsible and offensive to me...

If anyone wants to see the post in situ, it's http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1302522&sid=3015df1ebcfd53486ec1280f6b2c1719
(click "previous page" to see the start of the thread)

There are people being obnoxious in several different directions... I tend to lean in the "why would I want an escape-prone, lethal, and fragile animal for a pet" side of things, but still, it's a valid point that they don't kill their owners, or their families, or researchers, very often. I want to be something of a libertarian with respect to things like this, so if someone wants to responsibly own or do something dangerous, I think it's society's place to make sure they're informed rather than prevented, unless they're also putting innocent people at risk. Unfortunately, when I read some of the justification, posturing, and misrepresentation that goes into rationalizing the machismo of keeping toxic animals, I question that ideal... I'm certain that a lot of these people don't want an octopus in particular, they want to prove that they can keep a toxic animal without showing fear.

 

[Thales]

I trust the poster (because I know who it is) completely about his experience in the islands - which is no reason at all to mess with a potentially toxic animal.

Last I spoke to Roy to follow up the blue ring thing, there were no confirmed cases of death due to blue rings in captivity, and very few in the wild - which is also no reason to mess with a potentially toxic animal. Hopefully he will chime in if that info is out of date.

FWIW, most of the people I have known who have had blue rings haven't kept them for macho poison reasons, rather they thought the animal looked cool, and a good chunk of those people didn't know the animal was toxic.

It seems that thinking a lot of the people who keep blue rings want to prove they are fearless around a toxic animals is also one of those "anecdotes escalated to fact".

If people want to keep a blue ring while wearing a 'seatbelt' I am ok with that. I am also ok with people choosing not to import them at all. For me, the having the choice is the important thing. I think the best thing would be for them to be available in the trade, but collected on demand, and costing at least 100 dollars US - but I generally feel that way about all animals in the trade.

 

[monty]

FWIW, most of the people I have known who have had blue rings haven't kept them for macho poison reasons, rather they thought the animal looked cool, and a good chunk of those people didn't know the animal was toxic.

It seems that thinking a lot of the people who keep blue rings want to prove they are fearless around a toxic animals is also one of those "anecdotes escalated to fact".

Well, maybe my reading between the lines skills are weak, but I inferred that a number of the posters on that thread thought it was appealing to own blue-rings specifically because they are toxic, and that some looked down on people who expressed concern (and others looked down on people who didn't express concern.) I doubt most of those people actually own blue rings, they probably just mouth off a lot, so maybe blue ring owners aren't a problem so much as people who say they want to be blue ring owners (or trolls in general...)

I can confirm that around 1986, when I was trying to buy an octo from some Bay Area LFS, they tried to "upsell" me to a blue ring "because they look so much prettier," and only mentioned (but admitted knowing) about the toxicity when I said "aren't those the ones that are fatally toxic?" The fact that the guy brushed this off gave me such a bad impression that I dropped the whole project (I didn't want to work with a store that would care more about upselling than killing their customers! I guess as long as I'd already *paid* for the octo, it's OK if I'm not a repeat customer!) So at least before you could look these things up on the internet, there were definitely people who tried to sell customers on them without mentioning that "sudden death" problem... that seems consistent with your having run into people keeping them who didn't realize the danger.

I also worry about, say, postal workers dealing with shipped blue-rings-- if the package is misaddressed or leaking or arrives when only the 8 year old is there to sign for it, and they have to open it up for some reason, if it's not labeled "caution: fatally toxic octopus" it could be a serious problem.

 

[Thales]

Night at home for you too?
My wife and kid are at a Harry Potter book release party.

Well, maybe my reading between the lines skills are weak, but I inferred that a number of the posters on that thread thought it was appealing to own blue-rings specifically because they are toxic, and that some looked down on people who expressed concern (and others looked down on people who didn't express concern.) I doubt most of those people actually own blue rings, they probably just mouth off a lot, so maybe blue ring owners aren't a problem so much as people who say they want to be blue ring owners (or trolls in general...)

That forum has traditionally has been a nasty place (thats starting to change) so the tone of posts can be bad, and defensiveness is way up.
You are right on all counts about the variation of posters in that thread though, and the range from outspoken, uninformed hobbyist to public aquarists.
I think it is an interesting point that blue ring owners rarely post - they know they will be flamed. That makes it kind of hard to get information on who is keeping them and how many come in. I am running into the same problems trying to get info on wunderpus - no one fesses up to actually getting one. The people who ask questions about them, such as the original poster (whom I know and would be someone I wouldn't worry about owning a blue ring) and get trashed which seems like a bad way to handle anything. It does seem like many of the people who ask about blue rings and get trashed and return to the forum that trashed them don't end up getting one.

I also worry about, say, postal workers dealing with shipped blue-rings-- if the package is misaddressed or leaking or arrives when only the 8 year old is there to sign for it, and they have to open it up for some reason, if it's not labeled "caution: fatally toxic octopus" it could be a serious problem.

Thats a worry with any marine ornamental. An out of water, abused zoanthind being handled by anyone is equally if not more dangerous than a blue ring.

 

[tywtly]

I'm really lovin this topic. Kinda off topic, but the last time I was at the "L"FS, I mentioned my plans for an octo tank. The manager of the store said he had set one up already and had a beautiful octo that he was just in love with. I asked him what kind and he thought for a second and then said "Oh, it's one of those pretty Australian blue-ring things! My two kids love him almost as much as me!" Of course, I stared in disbelief, before remarking "Uh...you know that's deadly, right? And there's no anti-venom for the toxins." First he laughed. He thought I was kidding. Then he realized I still had a straight face. Then he started getting worried. He said "You're kidding right?" I said no. Then he said oh crap and went to his office thingy and called his wife. I was awestruck that someone would keep something like an octo (or anything really) that they didn't first research in depth! I referred him to tonmo, and he might be on here by now. Of course, as a snake keeper, I have to relate this situation to my other hobby. Keeping a blue-ring at all is like keeping a cobra, but keeping one without knowing anything about it is like keeping a taipan. It's really pretty sad how uneducated the world is.

 

[Jean]

I wouldn't handle a BR without a net. It's just not worth the risk. OK so maybe the beak of one that size won't penetrate the skin BUT I'd imagine that if you had an open wound (eg a scratch or cut) on your hand the toxins in the water may still be seriously unpleasant BTW I was always under the impression that the blue rings/lines are not apparent unless the animal was stressed and was "considering" a defensive nip. Certainly the ones I saw in a lab in Hobart were not displaying rings, they were a muddy brown colour, until they were startled, then the rings flashed up. So The chap/chappess in the picture was risking a nip!!!

J

 

[DWhatley]

Jean,
Debbie of Mote relayed a story about receiving an unexpected batch of blue rings from a pet store that did not order them and was in a panic. She mentioned that they did not show the rings when they arrived and commented that it would have been so easy to see one in the wild and play with it without knowing its nature.

 

[monty]

Jean,
Debbie of Mote relayed a story about receiving an unexpected batch of blue rings from a pet store that did not order them and was in a panic. She mentioned that they did not show the rings when they arrived and commented that it would have been so easy to see one in the wild and play with it without knowing its nature.

Yeah, she mentioned that to get the rings to show in the preserved one, she used nicotine to get the chromatophore muscles to contract before fixing it... I forget if she had to fix it with something extra strong as well (gluteraldehyde? )

In terms of the bite and breaking the skin, although I agree that the major risk of death is from getting it into the blood stream (or, even worse, the CSF inside the blood-brain barrier!) Roy mentioned in some thread that he's experienced numbness from just handling a dead blue-ring.

 

[Neogonodactylus]

There are currently only 4 described species of Hapalochlaena, two from Australia, one from the western Pacific and eastern Indian oceans, and a poorly preserved specimen from the Andaman Islands. Mark Norman thinks there are at least another half dozen. I've seen at least three others, one from the Great Barrier Reef, one from far northern Australia and another one from Indonesia. The early literature on blue-rings is confusing since most were called "H. maculosa", but in fact were H. fasciatus. Alex Kerstich told me that he successfully reared H. maculosa hatchlings. In the scientific literature, there are only a couple of dozen papers, most done 30 years ago when people were trying to isolate the venom. You will see it referred to as maculotoxin, but in the end, it seems to be mostly TTX, although there may be other compounds related to typical cephalopod venom. I don't think that there is any debate that the component that can kill you is TTX - supposedly produced by bacteria (Vibrio) that grow in the posterior salivary glands. However, there are no published data that show how long TTX titers remain high in captive blue-rings, how much variation there is among populations, or how venomous some of the undescribed species are. (We do know that the species found around Darwin has killed humans.)

I have twice felt to effects of TTX poisioning from putting my hand in water than contained a dead H. lunulata and I know one other researcher who had a similar experience. There is still some debate whether TTX can penetrate the skin or whether the animal must bite and puncture the skin, but a couple of ER reports that I have read could not find wounds. Most do.

I think everyone knows my position on aquarists keeping these animals in the home aquarium and I won't flagellate that beast here. A couple of comments made, however, don't match up with my experience. First, a lot of people contact me looking for blue-rings or information on them. It is certainly my impression that the majority are interested in them because the are exotic and deadly. Many emails start with "I know they are deadly, but I'm experienced keeping (fill in the deadly animal of your choice), ". This is for many people a macho thing.

Secondly, I've seen H. lunulata handled in the field by fishermen and their children with no apparent fear. I'm curious why people are so nonchalant about them, but I'm not about to try it myself.

Third, keeping a blue-ring in an aquarium can make handling them perhaps more dangerous. I feed mine with a feeding stick and they quickly learn to associate it with food and attack it when placed in the aquarium. Some of my closest calls have been working around blue-rings that are used to being fed.

Roy