Puffer fish

Representatives of the low-boreal subtropical Asiatic species inhabit the brackish and marine waters of the Pacific Northwest. Such fish has become widespread in the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, in the territory of the western waters of the Sea of Japan, where it lives near the mainland coast, up to Olga Bay. The puffer population can be observed in the Yellow and East China Seas, near the Pacific coast of Japan from Kyushu to Volcano Bay.

The high cost of poisonous fish does not reduce its popularity. The pricing of an exotic and dangerous dish is influenced not by the rarity of fugu, but by the incredible complexity of preparing such a fish. In special restaurants, only licensed chefs are engaged in cooking pufferfish, who extract caviar, liver and other entrails from fish. A clean fillet contains some toxin that allows you to feel the symptoms of poisoning, but is not capable of causing death.

It is difficult to name a more expensive and at the same time very dangerous dish in Japanese cuisine than cooked puffer fish. The average cost of one medium-sized fish is about $300, and the price of a set meal is $1000 or even more. The incredible toxicity of representatives of the species is due to the presence in the tissues of fish of a huge amount of tetrodoxin. The meat of one fish can cause fatal poisoning in three dozen people, and the level of toxicity of tetrodoxin is higher than strychnine, co***ne and curare poison.

The average life expectancy of the Brown puffer fish in natural conditions very rarely exceeds 10–12 years. It is assumed that among other representatives of the Takifugu genus, there are also no centenarians.

The average lifespan of a tiger shark in its natural habitat is believed to be no more than twelve years. More accurate and reliable data, supported by facts, are not available today

The world of reptiles is so diverse that very interesting and unusual representatives are often found, about which we know very little. The Belttail Lizard is an ancient exotic animal that has gone through all stages of evolution up to the present day

Thanks to scientific research, it was possible to find out that pufferfish cannot swim at a decent speed. This feature is explained by the aerodynamic characteristics of the body of the fish. Nevertheless, representatives of the species have good maneuverability, thanks to which they can quickly turn, move forward, backward, and even sideways

A significant part of the species of the genus Takifugu described to date are inhabitants of the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. Several representatives of the genus inhabit freshwater rivers in China. The genus includes omnivorous fish with strong teeth, which are often relatively large in size, which is due to the absence of abrasive feed in the diet of such an aquatic inhabitant. In the presence of danger, poisonous fish may well bite their offender.

Fish belonging to the genus Takifugu occupies a very honorable place in modern Japanese art and oriental culture. The mechanics of the action of a toxic substance is pumped into the paralysis of the muscular system of living organisms. In this case, the victim of the poison retains full consciousness until the moment of death.

Poisonous species of the pufferfish family (Tetraodontidae) also have other, less well-known names:

skalozubovye (with a monolithic structure of teeth that are fused together);
four-toothed, or four-toothed (with teeth fused on the jaws, due to which two upper and two lower plates are formed);
dog fish (with a well-developed sense of smell and the ability to identify odors in the water column).