Embracing the Pain, for Science Monday, Dec. 16 Yesterday we woke up to very bad weather, including a lot of rain, strong winds, and poor visibility. But field time is precious, so we decided to set out to collect more lionfish. On our way to the Pelican Keys, the rain got really heavy and we were blown off course and had to stop the boat. Since it was already late in the day, I decided to do the dive where we were. The first thing we saw was the usual school of social wrasses. The day was not completely wasted as we were on the right habitat. But then we started seeing lionfish -- lots of them. We collected a total of 13, and both Carole Baldwin of the Smithsonian and I had catch bags full of them. That is when they hit us, both of us. I was swimming back to the boat along the surface with my bag full of lionfish. That would usually be okay to do, but because of the storm and wind the surge was pushing the bag closer to me. Then a large wave came, pushed the bag toward my left leg, and two spines stung me. The pain is hard to describe, but the initial shot is a deep muscle pain that feels like a medicine or vaccine shot, and the area affected is much bigger. It might be like taking 10 deep tissue injections at once. And it only gets worse from there. Carole had five lionfish in her catch bag and was trying to push another one in when it escaped from the tip of the spear and its dorsal fin hit her hand. She managed to put the fish back into the bag and swam to the boat where she found me on my back in a lot of pain. Lee A. Weigt, of the Smithsonian, rushed the boat back to Carrie Bow Key and we used the only antidote available in this case: hot water. What followed was hours of excruciating pain, and, in my case, a fever. I could barely walk. Any contact of my left foot with the ground would make the pain worse. Carole's hand swelled up like a balloon. What affected us was the lionfish's potent venom, which is stored in glands at the base and grooves of its fin spines, and is used primarily as a defense mechanism. When the spines are pressed down, they push on the venom glands, which send the venom up along the grooves on the spines toward the point of contact. The venom is a neurotoxin containing four different chemical compounds that act in combination to cause excruciating pain. Using hot water as a treatment activates blood circulation and causes the venom to spread out and become diluted (therefore reducing the pain). It also breaks the venom down, further reducing its efficacy. In rare cases the venom can cause a severe allergic reaction and medical attention is required. After about two hours of hot water treatment, I was still in a lot of pain. But I knew that neither of us had had a violent reaction to the venom, so we decided to get back to work. Much like time in the field, time in the digestive tract of the lionfish is precious. If the contents stay in their stomachs for too long, they will get digested, making identification difficult. As we started opening them, we noticed that almost every fish had a full stomach. We also started to notice how negative their impact in the ecosystem really is. They had juvenile wrasses, snappers, grunts and parrotfishes in their stomachs. And they also had something else, the social wrasse. In one of the stomachs we found an almost intact female social wrasse, and a few more digested remains that looked like pieces of other social wrasses. I will determine the identity of those remains through DNA tests back in San Francisco when I return, but chances are that they belong to our small, native reef helper. So it seems like the news for the social wrasse in Belize is not all that good after all.