Cone snail story! :)

[joel]

Found it very interesting to read the article from the July issue on Cone snails.

I live in Australia and my live rock is obviously local. A couple of years ago I was moving some rock around and felt a rather painfull sting. The snail looked just like what they showed us at school (years earlier) as a cone snail. Needless to say I remove it and the stinging went away rather quickly. I thought no more of it as we where told the adults were generally only lethal to children and this one was only around 1cm long.

Well an hour latter the mild pins and needles up my arm was rather annoying, but it went away and luckily I didn't!

 

[rshimek]

Hi Joel,

Well, simply put, you were very lucky.

 

[joel]

Are the toxins of various types of cone snails slightly different, as I have always heard here in Australia that are cone snails are generally only lethal for children (and that is refering to an adult cone snail, hence I wasn't really concerned when 'stung')

 

[rshimek]

Originally posted by joel

Hi,

Are the toxins of various types of cone snails slightly different, as I have always heard here in Australia that are cone snails are generally only lethal for children (and that is refering to an adult cone snail, hence I wasn't really concerned when 'stung')

Yes, each snail has a different venom. Take a look at "The Cones and Conotoxins" site linked with the article. For the fish eating cones, the amount of venom from some of the fish-eating cones needed to kill a man is on the order of nanograms. Simply put, such venom is most lethal venom known against humans; plenty of adults have died from their stings.