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Rocky and Spike share their venom

23 July 2008

Wayne Hodgson with Spike the stonefish
Associate Professor Wayne Hodgson with Spike.

They might look scary and prehistoric but to those in the know they're called Rocky and Spike and they're helping shape research into the creation of new anti-venom.

These Barrier Reef stonefish aren't your typical aquatic specimen. They're venomous: one sting from their spines can cause intense pain, temporary paralysis, and sometimes death -- if untreated.

These fish live in Associate Professor Wayne Hodgson's laboratory in the Department of Pharmacology. His team works with dangerous creatures most people avoid: mouse spiders, taipans, death adders, tiger snakes and the Australian box jellyfish -- the world's most venomous animal. They are venom collectors.

Associate Professor Hodgson is unfazed about his stonefish. "They are not aggressive fish," he said. "As the spines are found along their backs, they are safe as long as you don't stand on them or push down on their spines. We handle them with protective mesh gloves."

Associate Professor Hodgson has shown in earlier work that "milked" stonefish venom causes cardiovascular collapse -- where blood pressure plummets and the heart slows down.

While the currently available stonefish anti-venom appears to work well, this isn't the case with box jellyfish anti-venom, with experimental and clinical evidence suggesting it is ineffective, so much so that the treatment is no longer used in Darwin, where stings are common.

Because anti-venoms are expensive to produce and the local market is small, Associate Professor Hodgson is working to find other drugs and strategies to treat box jellyfish stings.

Spike the stonefish
Spike shows off.

That's where Rocky and Spike come into the story.

Each stonefish has 13 spines along its gnarly back and a venom gland underneath each spine.

Associate Professor Hodgson places a stonefish into a tub of water, pushes down on a spine, venom squirts up and is collected for further research.

"We hope the stonefish venom will give us an insight into the mechanism of action of the jellyfish toxin as we believe they may work in a similar way," he said.

For more information visit the Department of Pharmacology website.