Post #14551

Blue-ringed octopus: Death from a puddle. His poison is enough for 30 people! The blue-ringed octopus looks absurdly dangerous. When I read about him, I can’t help but think that this little monster is the creation of a journalist from a yellow newspaper who decided to scare his readers. Just imagine: a cephalopod smaller than the palm of your hand can easily send 20-30 people to the next world in a row, and its poison will be enough for a couple more fish! And, as if this were not enough, it is found not somewhere in the depths of the ocean, but in the most ordinary salty puddles on the most ordinary Australian beaches. Where children play and adults sunbathe. Under normal conditions, blue-ringed octopuses live in coastal reefs, as this is an ideal place to hunt small prey and avoid the attention of larger predators. But sometimes, during high tides, they are carried to the coast, where octopuses get stuck in small puddles and lagoons. And don't let the Honey Badger step into the puddle where the little octopus is sitting! A frightened ringed octopus will plunge its beak into your leg and inject you with a dose of tetrodotoxin, one of the worst naturally occurring neurotoxins. If he does not spare the poison, then within two minutes your muscles will begin to fail, and after 6-7 minutes you will die from asphyxia. But even if the octopus gives you a very small dose of poison, your life hangs by a thread. Most likely, you will not feel the bite itself, just after 15-30 minutes you will begin to sweat intensely and find that your fingers begin to cramp. And in about a day you will be lying in intensive care and breathing exclusively thanks to a ventilator. And with such characteristics of the poison and the peculiarities of its life, the octopus looks surprisingly harmless. In the entire history of observations, octopuses have caused the death of only 16 people. But why did such dangerous creatures cause such little harm to humanity? First of all, because people have been warned. Locals know that walking through puddles on the beach is playing roulette with death. Even children avoid such puddles and wear sandals with thick soles. And it works great; the blue-ringed octopus bites, on average, just one person a year. Secondly, the octopuses themselves tried. Finding itself in a dangerous situation, the cephalopod does not attack, but tries to escape and hide, changing the color of its integument to match the color of the environment. If that doesn't work, he turns bright orange and the blue rings on his body begin to pulsate, attracting attention. This is how the octopus tries to drive you away and avoid a dangerous fight. And only if after this the leg does not move out of the puddle, the octopus will decide to attack it. Well, thirdly, the cephalopod’s venom is not so terrible. Yes, it can bring a person to the grave in a matter of minutes, and there is no antidote for it. But at the same time, the poison is perfectly broke