And true to their name, sheepshead fish are notorious for stealing bait and somehow being in cahoots with the Joker.Ī fully-grown adult sheepshead will have well-defined incisors sitting at the front of the jaw, and molars set in three rows in the upper jaw and two rows in the lower jaw. They have five to seven distinctive black, vertical bars running down their silvery bodies, which is why the sheepshead is also called the convict fish. Preferring coastal habitats around rock pilings, jetties, mangroves, reefs and piers, they can grow up to around 91 cm in length and weigh up to 9.6 kg. Sheepshead fish are a common North American marine species that span from Cape Cod and Massachusetts through to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil. So the sheepshead fish doesn't do any of that stuff. In 2009, a fisherman named Andy Giles caught one in the English Channel, which is unusual because they usually keep to warm waters of the Mediterranean and African west coast, and told the Daily Telegraph, 'Now I realise what it was and the effects it can have, perhaps I should have taken it into town to sell to some clubbers!' Andy lol. Prior to that, a 40-year-old man also fell victim to ichthyosarcotoxism while holidaying in the French Riviera and had hallucinations of screaming animals and giant, menacing spiders surrounding his car.

The manifestations abated three days after he had eaten the fish,' de Haro and Pommier report. 'Fearing that these symptoms might signal the beginning of a major mental illness, he did not tell his friends or attending physician.

He literally thought he was losing his mind. This poisoning from contaminated fish flesh prompts intense hallucinations and terrifying nightmares that can last for several days.Īs reported by Luc de Haro and Philip Pommier from the Centre Antipoison of the Hôpital Salvator in Marseille, France, in a 2006 issue of Clinical Toxicology, a 90-year-old man ate a Salema porgy in Saint Tropez in 2002 and two hours later was hallucinating and having nightmares about people and birds screaming, which lasted a further two nights. Along with a handful of other fish, the flesh of the Salema porgy can sometimes inflict ichthyosarcotoxism on those who eat it, which is a very rare form of poisoning caused by the toxins of a tiny species of marine plankton called Gambierdiscus toxicus. Apparently they taste great! The Salema porgy, also of the Sparidae family and nicknamed the dreamfish, was reportedly used for recreational hallucinogenic purposes in the Mediterranean during the Roman Empire and has played a role in traditional Polynesian ceremonies. So that’s something.Īnother good thing about this huge creep is that, unlike one of its relatives, the Salema porgy ( Sarpa salpa), you won't risk having a terrible trip when you eat one. While other members of the Sparidae family are trying out various forms of hermaphroditism, including changing from female to male (protogyny), doing the opposite (protandry), or being unisexual (gonochorists), the sheepshead is just sitting at home watching cartoons and leaving its genitals where they are. Despite the way it looks, the sheepshead fish ( Archosargus probatocephalus) has at least one thing going for it.

Terth of a sheepshead fish