Have you ever had the misfortune of catching one of these?

And not knowing what it can do?

I caught one a couple of years back while visiting Angola or perhaps I should say it caught me. I had never seen one before and promptly used my hands to hold it while removing the hook to throw it back.

Big mistake.

Any of those spines including a spike on the gills contain a super painful venom.

With a flick of its body it impaled me with the gill spike and immediately I knew I was in trouble... the pain was excruciating.

The rest of the group had gone off somewhere else and there wasn't much I could do as I was alone. By the time they got back, about 30 minutes later, my forearm was about twice its size and growing fast.

I could have given Popeye a run for his money...

They took me to a local resident and we immersed the whole limb in very hot water. Turns out that this did the trick. Later, after a little research on the internet, I found that this treatment can work for a number of venom's.

Venom's are proteins and some of them denature at higher temperatures. Placing the effected part in hot water is an effective way to denature the protein and neutralize it.

It also works for blue bottle stings too....