Catalogue descriptif des poissons vénéneux du banc de Saint Barthelemy (Antilles françaises)

The Caribean Sea ichthyofauna, like that of all tropical and subtropical seas, contains venomous fishes some of which can cause certain forms of ichthyosarcotoxism.The first people to notice, at their expense, the existence of these dangerous animals in the waters of the West Indies were the conquistadores who settled in Haïti and Cuba after Christopher COLOMBUS. As these men were not well provided by fresh supplies from their far away home-as related by many chroniclers-they had to live on local food resources. Originally, terrestrial fauna, in these islands, was very lacking as far as big mammals go, and birds bigger than a pigeon were rare. As a consequence, Spanish sailors and soldiers ate mostly seafood, fish, crustaceans and molluscs that abounded in the clear waters of the Caribean shores. (The introduction of European mammals: bovines, ovines, caprines and porcines, but also poultry, only happened many years later-cattle raising only developed when the conquistadores were well settled and land had been divided-initial protid production was not sufficient to cover the Spaniards' needs....