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Cone Shellfish

The dangerous types of Cone Shellfish are found in tropical waters around Australia.

The majority of the Cone Shellfish are 10 cm long, the largest ever recorded was 23 cm long. The darts in a Cone Shellfish can not ever be reused, it is always making new darts.

 

A Cone Shellfish uses darts to kill its prey. These darts are poisonous. Twenty to thirty darts are kept in a pool of poison in the mouth of a Cone Shellfish. Each dart is attached the body of the shellfish. Every dart is also a hollow and filled with poison. It uses the snout to extend and swallow the darts.

When a person is stung by a Cone Shellfish the first symptom is a sharp pain around the sting. This is followed by a burning pain around the area. It then becomes numb and is beginning to swell. All the normal symptoms develop quickly, such as impaired vision, speech, swallowing, hearing and much more. Next the victim will have weakness in voluntary muscles. This is followed by dizziness and nausea. If the victim receives a severe sting from a C.geographus, it will cause paralysis to the heart and lungs, it can be followed by death. A less serious sting the victim will recover from a few hours to several weeks. At this time a great effort will exhaust the victim easily. Cone Shellfish bites are a lot like a wasp sting.

Cone Shellfish are beautiful, but if you pick one up you are putting yourself in danger.  Also a Cone Shellfish can extend their snouts to make it as long as their body!

A 32 year-old man was wading at low tide in a shallow and a tropical lagoon. He picked up at algae covered Cone Shellfish. As he started to scrape at algae he felt a sting in the palm of his hand. Immediately his whole hand had a burning sensation. He turned the shell over and saw a Cone shellfish withdrawing into its shell. The dart came out and the mark just about went invisible. He felt light head so he headed home, if he had not done that he may have drowned. An hour after he was stung he could not to move his limbs or even sit up. Nine hours after the sting he had to be taken to medical care, he recovered. The Cone shellfish that bit the man was 8.5 cm long.

There is then another incident with a Cone shellfish, a man was bitten in 1935. He was doing exactly the same thing as the 32 year-old man. Except this poor man died in hospital five hours later.

 

Copyright 2003 by Rebecca 
Last updated: Wednesday, 26 November 2003