Saturday, January 26, 2008

Six Gill Shark: Rare Find

It's not every day you happen to be walking along the beach and discover a Six Gill Shark. Normally you find these critters at depths up to 1500' and greater.

The Six Gills we have encountered were typically shy, rare, and amazing animals to see in person. These ancient sharks have spiked and serrated teeth that rip and tear the meat off of whatever dead animal drifts down to the cold dark depths.

You can only imagine this guys surprise when a 9 foot beast washed up on his local beach this week:

"Poulsbo resident Andy Woodford was combing the beach for shells when he made the unusual find. The shark is an immature sixgill female, found with no signs of trauma or obvious cause of death."

Here's the whole story

Waiter,There's A Worm In My Salmon

A somewhat dis-gusting warning today about a parasitic worm that causes big problems in humans. You get these nasty critters from eating Salmon.

According to this diagram put out by the CDC-dolphins are in on it too. You should never trust a dolphin, dammit.

Anisakis simplex-In North America, anisakiasis is most frequently diagnosed when the affected individual feels a tingling or tickling sensation in the throat and coughs up or manually extracts a nematode (that's a live worm people).

In more severe cases there is acute abdominal pain, much like acute appendicitis accompanied by a nauseous feeling. Symptoms occur from as little as an hour to about 2 weeks after consumption of raw or undercooked seafood.

Here's the gross part:

"With their anterior ends, these larval nematodes from fish or shellfish usually burrow into the wall of the digestive tract occasionally they penetrate the intestinal wall completely".

What can you do to protect yourself?

1. Always cook your fish
2. Never buy fish on sale
3. Eat Kobe Beef