Some time ago, when a fisherman in the Penghu Islands, Taiwan returned to port after a fishing trip, he caught a crab with bright colors. Because the shape of this crab is quite rare, even experienced fishermen did not dare to eat it at will. They went online to check and discovered that it was the most poisonous crab in the world .
The crab that the fisherman caught is an extremely poisonous crab, scientifically named "Lophozozymus pictor" , also known as the embroidered striped crab, mosaic reef crab , distributed in Australia, Singapore, the Malay Peninsula and Hainan, China. Its shell is red and white, very beautiful but potentially very toxic.
Scientists have experimentally demonstrated that the poison of one adult crab can poison 45,000 mice. There are records of many deaths due to its consumption and cooking it at high temperatures for a short time does not destroy the poison.
The striped crab lives mainly in the waters of Japan, Australia, the Republic of Fiji and Hainan Island (China), often found near low tide, on rocky bottoms or coral reefs at a depth of 30m.
The crab's toxins are believed to come from its food , such as poisonous sea cucumbers. Although sea cucumbers do not have obvious toxic organs, the organs and body walls of some sea cucumbers contain hemolytic toxins. Although they are generally harmless to the human body, if the crab preys on sea cucumbers, endogenous bacteria will process the toxins and incorporate them into the crab meat.
The Queensland Agricultural Biotechnology Centre conducted a study on its toxicity and found that the purified toxin has similar properties to sea anemone venom and tetrodotoxin.
Research by the Diana Zoology Group at the National University of Singapore shows that different parts of the crab have different toxicity. The intestines and hepatopancreas are more toxic, the muscles are less toxic, and the shell is slightly toxic or non-toxic. After being kept in captivity for a period of time, the toxicity will decrease or even disappear, indicating that the poison does indeed come from the food.
In fact, it is not surprising that poisonous crabs in the world can be divided into two types: highly toxic and mildly toxic .
There is also a very poisonous red crab called Zhengzheng Aijie crab , which has a bright red body and small pale yellow bumps on its surface, concentrated around the eyes and the front edge of the shell. Occasionally found in the southern waters of China, it is poisonous because it eats small puffer fish or poisonous fish.
