Poisonous Fish Encounter Sends Long Island Man to Hospital

Published January 13, 2015

A man has been taken to a hospital after tangling with a venomous fish in his home aquarium, police said.

A one spot foxface rabbitfish bit the 19-year-old aquarist Tuesday night while he was working on his fish tank in East Rockaway, said Nassau County Police Officer Thomas Brussell.

The species, known by the scientific name Siganus unimaculatus, has venomous spines on its back, according to fishbase.org, an electronic database maintained by researchers.

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Also called the blotched foxface rabbitfish, the fish is found in tropical seas off western Australia, the Philippines and other parts of the western Pacific Ocean.

Brussell said East Rockaway firefighters took the young man to a local hospital with a bite to his left index finger around 9:25 p.m., but information on his injuries and condition wasn't available early Wednesday.

Police would not release the man's name, and officials with the volunteer East Rockaway Fire Department could not be reached late Tuesday.

A call to the man's Nicholas Avenue address was not immediately returned.

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