The deadliest (and easy to miss) critters lurk in dark silence, ready
to strike with either the barest of warnings or none at all - and with
absolutely fatal venom.
Some you've heard about, and so sit there and scoff. Yeah, big deal:
rattlesnake, cobra, black widow -- either you can hear them coming,
avoid going to India, or simply not stick your hands into dark places.
They are nothing but annoyances: fatal only to the truly stupid, or
very sick... But there are others, nasty little things as vicious and deadly as they are quiet and unassuming.
1. The Cone Snail: can kill you in less than 4 minutes
Say, for instance, you are happily walking through the low surf merrily
picking up and discarding shells, looking for just the right one to
decorate your desk back at the office.
With no warning at all, however, you feel a sharp sting from one of those pretty shells -- a sting that quickly flares into a crawling agony.
With that quick sting, the cone snail's barbed spear has insidiously
injected you with one of the most potent neurotoxins in existence.
"The bright colors and patterns of cone snails are attractive to the
eye, and therefore people sometimes pick up the live animals and hold
them in their hand for a while." Meanwhile the snail may fire its harpoon, loaded with venom (the harpoon can penetrate gloves and even wetsuits)
Nerves short-circuited by this infinitesimally small amount of juice,
in seconds the agony of where the stinger struck has faded into a heavy
numbness. A relief, perhaps, but then it spreads and moments later the
paralysis has seized the entire limb. Then the breathing troubles start
... and then, simply, your heart stops beating.
Yes, there are antivenoms available, but, frankly, with something that can kill in less than four minutes
you'd have to carry it in your back pocket to survive. It wasn't just
for their fondness for these pretty shells that lead the CIA to develop
a weapon using this venom to dispatch enemies.
2. Poison Arrow Frog: Lethal Touch
That frog over there, for instance: that tiny, brilliantly colored
tree frog. Doesn't he look like some kind of Faberge ornament, there
against that vermilion leaf? Wouldn't such a natural jewel look just
gorgeous in a terrarium back home?
Pick him and you'll be dead in a matter of minutes. One second
frolicking in the undergrowth, the next spasming and foaming on the
jungle floor. No stinger, no bite, no venom: just the shimmering slime
covering his brilliant body.
The natives in these parts capture these poison arrow frogs (carefully)
and coat their blowgun darts with that slime and knock full grown
monkeys out of the trees with a single strike.
3. The lazy clown of the insect world.
Not a long distance from the deep green of the Amazon is southern
Brazil. if you are a tired hiker after a good trek you'd want to rest a
bit, to brace yourself against a tree for support. So what if you
happen to touch a certain hairy caterpillar. It¢s just a caterpillar,
right? The lazy clown of the insect world. One problem, though: it
happens to be a member of the lonomia family of moths.
The adult moth is just a moth, but the hairs of the caterpillar are
juicy with nasty stuff, so nasty that dozens of people die every year
from just touching them. By the way, it¢s not a good way to go, either:
their venom is a extremely powerful anticoagulant, death happening as
the blood itself breaks down. Not fun. Very not fun.
Many powerful predators are loud, almost comical: they parade their
danger; sharks announce their presence with a steady da-dum, da-dum,
da-dum of background music; rattlesnakes... well, they rattle; lions,
and tigers, and bears roar and bellow...
But the real monsters are more devious than that; they lurk on the
other side of invisibility, never make a sound, and kill you faster
than the sounding of that first note in a shark's theme song.
4. Beaked Sea Snake
Another creature of nightmares that doesn¢t come with a theme song is a strange import to the aquatic world. When you think snake
you usually think of dry land. But if you go paddling around the
Persian Gulf (or coastal islands of India) keep a wary eye out for the
gently undulating wave of Enhydrina Schistosa.
It might not look dangerous, if anything it just looks odd to see a
snake swimming in the sea, but don¢t let your fascination for a
"creature of the dry that lives in the wet" hypnotize you into getting
too close.
The Hook-nose (or beaked) sea snake, to use its less
scientific name, has one of the most potent venoms known. How potent?
Well, visualize 1.5 milligrams. Not easy, is it? Such a small amount.
But that¢s all the venom enhydrina needs to, well, leave you "swimming
with the fishes", as the mob likes to say.
"The snake is also eaten as meat by Hong Kong and Singapore fishermen and locals alike"
5. Stone Fish waits for you to step on it
But it¢s not time to leave the sea quite yet. There are two nasty
things in the blue depths you should spend many a sleepless night
frightened of. For the big one you¢ll have to wait a bit, for the one
right below it in terrifying lethality you just have to watch your step
when you¢re walking along the bottom of the ocean.
As you can see it's very hard to notice on the ocean floor:
Like all monsters it hides, camouflaging itself among the rocks on the
bottom. It¢s what¢s called an ambush predator: a critter that waits
until something juicy walks, or swims, by. But what it could do to you
requires no motion at all.
All the stone fish has to do is just sit there on the bottom and wait for you to innocently step on it.
That¢s all it takes: the spines on the
fish¢s back are like a parade of loaded hypodermic needles, each one
carrying enough bad stuff to kill even a buff diver in a matter of
minutes. But death is not really the worst.
The pain from a stone fish¢s sting is said to be so horrible that
sufferers have begged to have the pricked limb amputate rather than
live with it for another moment.
In a word: Ouch!.
6. Box Jellyfish should really be called the "coffin" jellyfish
Cone shells, snakes, and caterpillars can be avoided, brilliant frogs
warn of their fatality, and I¢ve already warned you about the stone
fish, but this last terror does not roar or display its danger at all.
Let's take one final swim, shall we, this time off the coast of
Australia?
Paddling in the crystal sea, enjoying the cool waters, the warm sun,
it's easy to miss this monster, especially as it's almost as clear as
the ocean. Chironex fleckeri doesn't sound terrifying, does it?
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