Michael Blue;92234 said:
Monty, I knew the flamboyant was toxic, but didn't the recent study on the Nova(?) program determine they were also venomous? I thought they tested several variables (including the skin and saliva) and said all samples came back toxic, meaning it was both toxic and venomous.
Maybe I misunderstood it?
As far as I've been able to tell, the results have never been published in anything that google scholar indexes, which is usually a pretty good representation of all scientific literature. (I searched for "norman metasepia," "metasepia toxin," and "metasepia venom" with no meaningful results.) So as far as I can tell, the only report of this is the Nova show.
I just went back to my recording, and re-listened. They mentioned that they
looked for toxin in the saliva and ink during the "build up suspense, will it be toxic or not" part, but when reporting the results, Mark Norman said:
"It turns out the flamboyant cuttlefish is toxic. It's as toxic as a blue-ringed octopus... it's actually poisonous flesh: the muscles themselves are poisonous... the toxin itself is not known, it's some completely different class of toxins..."
It could just be bad editing, but my impression is that the only part of the animal that's toxic is the flesh. I also strikes me as oversimplified: How did they decide it was "as toxic as a blue ring?" Did they poison 100 people with blue ring venom and with metasepia flesh, and find that 80 of each group died? And if it's a toxin that's chemically different from TTX, it seems like it's comparing apples and oranges to say "it's just as toxic."
Anyway, since it's unpublished data, as far as I can tell, going on the Nova special for anything important is pretty unwise... I'd suggest avoiding being bitten by or eating metasepia, just to play it safe.