• Question: What is the most dangerous animal you have seen in the wild while you have been a marine scientist

    Asked by cmillar to Clare, Dave, Glo, Ozge, Sean on 14 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ozge Ozkaya

      Ozge Ozkaya answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I havent seen anything dangerous while at sea, it’s doesnt mean they werent there though…:) I saw wild boars once and they were really close, I got really scared! Don’t lough… they can be really vicious! 🙂

    • Photo: Clare Woulds

      Clare Woulds answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      A sea snake. In the Arabian Sea there were quite a few swimming around on the surface of the ocean (I found it quite odd to see snakes swimming). Once we winched a piece of equipment on board that had been collecting animals (starfish, sea cucumbers etc.) to study, and my friend was taking them out of the net and putting them in buckets. She got very excited, said ‘ooh look, an eel’, picked up the ‘eel’ and put it in a bucket. One of the crew looked in the bucket and said ‘that’s not an eel, it’s a sea snake!’ She was very lucky not to get bitten, as they are really poisonous.

    • Photo: Dave Sproson

      Dave Sproson answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I’ve seen sharks while diving, but only little ones so they probably weren’t particularly dangerous. They also tend to be at least as wary of us as we are of them.

      I’ve also (I think!) seen killer whales while at sea, but as I was on a massive boat, they weren’t much of a threat!

    • Photo: Sean Clement

      Sean Clement answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I’ve encountered many, many Stonefish whilst diving. They’re the most poisonous fish in the sea and have some of the best camouflage in nature. They look, unsurprisingly, like a stone. Cue my horror when going to attach a piece of my equipment to the reef on a dive and finding that it moved when I did so! It was only a small one but it wouldn’t have ended very well for me had I not noticed…

      Once I find a picture of one, I’ll attach it to the answer as not only are they REALLY well camouflaged but they’re incredibly ugly as well…

    • Photo: Gloeta Massie

      Gloeta Massie answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Pshaw. Sea snakes – gentle and as curious as kittens. Sharks – like puppies! Stonefish – what are they going to do – look at you ugly? (Ok. Boars, in fact, are super scary – but they’re on land – so that doesn’t really count, does it? On the flip side – they make for great pork loins!) My critters win hands down – cone snails – also known as the cigarette snails – as in – you have enough time to smoke one cigarette before you’re dead. They have over 100 different toxins in their venoms. Its like you combined a stonefish with a sea snake with a shark x 33 boars! Want to see how cone snails do with all of that venom? Check out this video: http://youtu.be/BMOSvz5mThM

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