Due to climate change and other manmade changes to our natural environment, we are currently losing a lot of species that might be useful to us. Many of them are not well known, and their potential benefits to us have often not been researched.
Many species have evolved venom systems as key adaptations to protect them from predators, for example. How could their adaptive developments help us develop new medicines?
One example is a small fish, up to 11 cm long, which lives in the western Pacific Ocean, including the threatened Great Barrier Reef. It is called Maiacanthus grammistes or grammistes blenny or striped poison-fang blenny.
This poisonous species mostly stays in the open ocean, but travels into shallow waters and brackish estuaries. It is also sometimes found in the aquarium trade.
Blennies have sharp teeth with special channels, which they use to inject the poison into their predators to stun them. The venom reduces the blood pressure of the predator, relaxing its jaws, so the blenny can escape the danger.
Its venom is unusual, in that it targets the body’s opioid receptors. What that means is, it uses a poison similar to heroin or morphine, which stops rather than causes pain. And that’s why it is currently being investigated as a potential new painkiller for human use.
In scientific experiments, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Queensland, the poison was found not to cause pain in mice, and also to drop the heart rate of rats. These are explained in the paper “The Evolution of Fangs, Venom, and Mimicry Systems in Blenny Fishes”, which has been published in the journal Current Biology.
In an article in the science publication ZME Science, the researcher and co-author of the report, Bryan Fry from the University of Queensland, said the fanged blenny was an “excellent example” of why nature and unique habitats must be protected, particularly the Great Barrier Reef.
