Stonefish - a silent assassin of tropical waters, world’s most venomous fish
Baku, May 19, AZERTAC
The stonefish, (Synanceia), any of certain species of venomous marine fish of the genus Synanceia and the family Synanceiidae, found in shallow waters of the tropical Indo-Pacific.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, stonefish are sluggish bottom-dwelling fish that live among rocks or coral and in mudflats and estuaries.
Described as thickset fish with large heads and mouths, small eyes, and bumpy skins covered with wart like lumps and, sometimes, fleshy flaps, they rest on the bottom, unmoving, blending almost exactly with their surroundings in form and color.
Stonefish are masters of camouflage and can blend in so perfectly with their surroundings that their prey, predators, and even human SCUBA divers have trouble seeing them at all.
They almost always sit perfectly still, on the sea floor, in their preferred habitat of coral and rocky reefs, and their colors are often a perfect match for the substrate.
Wounds produced by these fish are intensely painful and sometimes fatal.
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