• Jay@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      “The blue-ringed octopus, despite its small size, carries enough venom to kill 26 adult humans within minutes. Their bites are tiny and often painless, with many victims not realizing they have been envenomated until respiratory depression and paralysis begins.[11] No blue-ringed octopus antivenom is available.[12]”

      Ok. Then I’d rather have a dog.

      • qisope@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Pretty sure no dog antivenom is available either. I’m just going to get a venomous snake to be safe.

        • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          This is why you start with small bites and build up an immunity. Then work your way up to larger breeds. You think people have chihuahuas because they actually want one?

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          This is correct. Tetrodotoxin. Like in pufferfish. It blocks nerve signals to muscles causing paralysis. There is no antivenom.

          If you got it from eating pufferfish, best you can do is administer activated charcoal to absorb as much as possible that hasn’t already made it into the bloodstream. After that, all you can do is manually run the heart and lungs until it wears off.

          So you basically need to be really close to a hospital or clinic, somehow convey what’s happened (while possibly unable to talk or move) and be lucky enough that said hospital has the resources to maybe keep you alive until it is out of your system.

      • Lord_McAlister@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Some more hopeful information about this little bugger:

        It’s not ACTUALLY venomous. As in it doesn’t inject you with a lethal substance, rather, it injects you with a nerve-toxin which disables your ability to open/close your lungs, which kills you. This sounds just as bad, but it means if you can get to a hospital, and make it to a ventilator, you’ll be back to normal by the next day.

    • MartinXYZ@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      A video, originally posted on TikTok, of a tourist in Australia handling a blue-ringed octopus went viral in January 2019.

      Is that where this picture is from? Or did a second person think it was a good idea?