Marine worms of the week: Chaetognatha and Nemertea

Oh noes! Grey side-gilled sea-slugs Pleurobranchaea maculata are stranding themselves on the beaches around Auckland, envious perhaps of the attention lavished on beached whales! The oh-noes part is that dogs have died from nomming them during littoral-zone walkies. Thus the current crop of sea-slugs are being bio-assayed for toxicity, for New Zealanders are an animal-loving people [where "bio-assay" = 'injecting various concentrations of slug extract into lab-fulls of mice to determine the lethal dose']. Our Science Minister Dr Wayne Mapp has called for more research into the Sea-slug Menace, and warned that

...the risk of poisoning from sea slugs was low but the risk of harm if you were poisoned by one was high.
"The amount that was fatal [to a person] was as low as half a slug - one teaspoon".

If true, Mrs Miggins will have to find some other ingredient to hold up the crusts of her celebrated Pies Marinara, or else rebrand them as New Zealand's answer to sashimi fugu, with an eye to the Japanese export market.

As any fule kno, animal species that can sequester the tetrodotoxin secreted by Vibrio alginolyticus bacteria -- to use in self-defense or as a venom for predation -- include (inter alia):

• sea-slugs;
• pufferfish;**
• blue-ringed octopus;
• arrow worms (phylum Chaetognatha);
• ribbon worms (phylum Nemertea); and
• newts.

Yet pufferfish is the only one* to feature in Extreme Eating adrenaline cuisine. It is a mystery.

* Fugu features in episodes of X-files, Bones, and House (twice), so we know all about it and don't need no steekin' Google.

** Almost the only one; the Whackyweedia does mention "at least one report of a fatal [tetrodotoxin poisoning] in Oregon when an individual swallowed a Rough-skinned Newt Taricha granulosa." It would be premature and irresponsible to link this to the number of brewpubs in Oregon.

UPDATE: Bonus Fugu Warning Poster.
Apparently Vietnamese is the language of choice for billboards in Korea.