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To Friday 18 January 2019 - 05:00pm
KUCHING: A group of researchers has successfully found a way of multiplying the yellow pufferfish population through the induced breeding technique, the first in the world.
Assoc Prof Dr Samsur Mohamad from the Department of Aquatic Sciences, Faculty of Resource Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), said he did the research together with his former PhD student, Dr Ahmad Syafiq Ahmad Nasir, and the Sarawak Fisheries Research Institute.
Samsur said induced breeding of the yellow pufferfish was aimed at making it easier for researchers to follow the development of this species and at assisting the aquaculture sector.
“The induced breeding technique is used to obtain yellow pufferfish fry as currently, we have not found the eggs in their wild or natural habitat.
“Through this technique, we can see how the puffer fish fry develops, starting with the fertilisation process until they grow into about two centimetres long.
“This research which took more than three years is a success as the induced breeding technique has never been discovered anywhere else in the world, and even the scientific articles in local or international journals only touched on tetrodotoxin (found in pufferfish),” he told Bernama here recently.
The yellow pufferfish season along Batang Saribas is from April to October each year, with Kampung Manggut in Spaoh, located near the river, among the areas where this fish is mostly found.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Syafiq said prior to this discovery, among the species of pufferfish that were successfully bred were the green spotted pufferfish in the United States and the tiger pufferfish di Japan.
“Since the discovery of this technique, we have carried out the breeding process more than 15 times, resulting in tens of thousands of yellow pufferfish fry.
“Currently, the breeding of the yellow pufferfish is only up to the larva and juvenile stage of its life cycle, and we are still doing research for up to its adult stage,” he said.
Ahmad Syafiq noted that the induced breeding technique did not involve the use of hormones, but involving people when collecting the eggs from the female pufferfish and sperm from the males.
“The stomach of the female and male fish needs to be massaged gently, called stripping, to release the eggs and sperm respectively for the fertilisation process,” he said, adding that the successful research had been published in the international journal, Aquaculture Research.
Ahmad Syafiq said the pufferfish possessed the poison, tetrodotoxin (TTX), a neurotoxin (that attacks the nervous system) and could even cause death, depending on the dosage inadvertently consumed by an individual.
“Poisoning by tetrodotoxin occurs when the natrium valve is blocked and prevents normal transmission of signals between parts of the body and to the brain.
“This causes dysfunction of the muscle cells, resulting in breathing failure due to diaphragm dysfunction, causing death.
“The symptoms of tetrodotoxin poisoning include numbness of lips and tongue, hypersalivation, perspiration, headache, fatigue, vomiting, diarrhoea and breathlessness,” he said. — Bernama
Source: Borneo Post
