A deadly exotic pufferfish has washed up on a south coast beach, hundreds of miles from its usual home.
The poisonous fish was found by a local diver on the sand at Knoll Beach in Studland, Dorset.
Owen Booty, from Freedive Life, said: ‘We’re fortunate to have some fantastic marine life right on our doorstep.
‘But despite all the time I’ve spent diving locally, I certainly wasn’t expecting to find a pufferfish washed up on the beach.’
It is thought the pufferfish was blown onto shore after much of the UK was battered by Storms Austen and Boelo last week.
Booty said he was walking along Knoll Beach when he came across what he thought was a plastic bag on the shore.
But further inspection confirmed it was a dead pufferfish.
He said: ‘I had a good idea what it was, but sent the photographs to Dorset Wildlife Trust and a friend who’s a marine biologist for confirmation.’
A spokesperson for the Dorset Wildlife Trust said: ‘Usually found in open water in the warmer parts of the Atlantic as well as the Indian and Pacific oceans, these fish are a rare sight in the UK, but they do turn up occasionally.’
They advised members of the public not to handle any pufferfish they come across themselves, and instead to report any they find to the charity.
Pufferfish get their name from a defence mechanism which causes them to inflate to the size of a balloon when they sense danger.
This makes it difficult for larger predators to swallow them.
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Some cultures, primarily in East Asia, eat pufferfish as a luxury – in Japan, it is known as fugu – but humans can also be poisoned by ingesting the meat if the deadly toxins are not removed during preparation.
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