Rare but extremely venomous - a blue-ringed octopus bit a woman on a beach in Australia.
The rescue service was able to catch the animal.
SYDENY - While collecting shells on a beach near Sydney, a woman has been bitten by one of the world's most venomous and deadly sea creatures: a blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata).
After swimming, the woman picked up a shell in which a blue-ringed octopus was hiding.
The small but poisonous octopus fell out of the shell and bit the woman twice in the stomach.
This is reported by the Australian emergency service
NSW Ambulance
.
Australia: Blue-ringed octopus bites woman while collecting shells on beach
"The bite of a blue-ringed octopus is rare in our country, but it is extremely venomous," said Inspector Christian Holmes, a spokesman for the emergency services on Facebook.
"The patient complained of abdominal pain around the bite site, so paramedics applied pressure and a cold compress before taking her to the hospital," the spokesman said.
There, the approximately 30-year-old woman is monitored and treated for other symptoms.
"Its poison is stronger than cyanide" - Emergency services catch blue-ringed octopus in plastic cup
The accident happened on Chinamans Beach in a northern suburb of Sydney (Australia) The paramedics managed to catch the animal, as a photo on Facebook proves.
The octopus looks pretty harmless in a plastic cup with a yellow lid.
However, that is very misleading.
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This venomous blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata) bit a woman twice in the abdomen.
© Screenshot Facebook NSW Ambulance
Blue-ringed octopus is the size of a golf ball
The blue-ringed octopus is a small genus of octopus and looks completely harmless at first glance.
But it is particularly poisonous.
The toxin is a neurotoxin.
It can lead to paralysis, which can trigger respiratory arrest and ventricular fibrillation.
"Its poison is stronger than cyanide," warns the Australian rescue service after the accident.
The environmental protection organization Ocean Conservancy
warns even more drastically
on its website:
"Its venom is 1,000 times more potent than cyanide, and this golf ball-sized powerhouse contains enough venom to kill 26 people in minutes."
It is no wonder that it is considered one of the most dangerous animals in the sea.
Anyone who encounters this beauty should flee as soon as possible.
However, the blue-ringed octopus is not aggressive.
"It will only bite people if cornered or handled," says
the Ocean Conservancy.
When the octopus feels threatened, as the name suggests, glowing blue rings appear all over its body.
In the past 100 years, however, only three bites from a blue-ringed octopus or blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena) have ended fatally in Australia, reports the Australian TV station 9 News.
(ml)