Persons are most often affected by eating contaminated food. It causes a chemical denervation by blocking the release of acetylcholine. This causes muscle paralysis and death is most often due to paralysis of the respiratory muscles. It is a sodium channel blocking agent. This is followed within 10-45 min by muscle incoordination, salivation, skin numbness, vomiting, diarrh a, convulsions, and respiratory paralysis.
Treatment is supportive and symptomatic.
Found in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, also produces tetrodotoxin. It is injected into the victim by a modified tooth that is fired from the proboscis of the snail like a dart. It may cause human death. This is the most toxic of the jellyfish, although the entire family is poisonous to some extent. It injects a necrotising neurotoxin by thousands of nematocycts that are present on the tentacles.