Has hardly any predators

Poisonous pufferfish species found off Croatia

(Bild: facebook.com/Aquarium Pula)

A fisherman recently made a worrying catch off the Croatian island of Ceja. In his net, he found harehead pufferfish (pictured above), which are among the most poisonous fish in the world.

The fisherman reportedly caught the animals at the beginning of last week. The nearby Pula Aquarium reported on Facebook (see post below) that a total of seven individuals had been observed in the bay of Medulin. One of the pufferfish was caught at a depth of 19 meters.

Fish species produces extremely strong poison
As a silver-colored band runs from the mouth to the deeply forked caudal fin, the animal is sometimes also referred to as the silver stripe pufferfish. This silver stripe contains an extremely strong poison called tetrodotoxin. This can cause serious damage to health and even death if eaten.

Tetrodotoxin is most concentrated in the gonads and liver, but is also found on the skin. It is assumed that a dose of just one to two milligrams is fatal. Symptoms of poisoning appear around 45 minutes after ingesting the poison.

Turkey has put a bounty on the animals
Turkish fishermen have been complaining about the increasing spread of pufferfish in the Mediterranean for years. In summer 2021, the government in Ankara therefore declared war on the poisonous animal with a bounty.

With its prevalence, the harehead pufferfish is destroying the ecosystem in the sea and also causing great damage to fishermen.

(Bild: facebook.com/Aquarium Pula)

Fishermen on Turkey's Mediterranean and Aegean coasts were able to hand in caught harehead pufferfish at designated points from the beginning of July and received five Turkish lira (the equivalent of around 50 cents at the time) in return. The program was set to run until the end of 2023 and was to apply to a maximum of 500,000 harehead puffer fish.

Problematic for fishermen and biodiversity
According to experts, the overabundance of harehead pufferfish is destroying the marine ecosystem and also causing great harm to fishermen. Not only do they often eat the catch, they also bite the nets, they say. According to biologists, its presence also has a negative impact on biodiversity.

The fish, which originally came from the warmer Red Sea, migrated to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal, which was opened in 1869. As it has hardly any predators in the Mediterranean, it has been able to spread quite undisturbed, according to researchers. Global warming and the rise in temperature in the Mediterranean also mean that the hare's head pufferfish can spread more easily there.