A snorkeler identified only as Frank is lucky to be alive after finding what he believed to be a beautiful souvenir of the sea. He was exploring Egypt’s Red Sea when he came across a beautifully colored shell. He picked up the shell and took a picture to capture the moment. Months after his vacation, Frank realized that what he thought was a harmless sea creature was actually a venomous cone snail. It only takes a cone snail milliseconds to take down its prey, stabbing its harpoon-like teeth into predators. Once a human is stabbed by a cone snail, it takes less than an hour to succumb to the toxin if not treated immediately. “I actually had no idea about that thing being potentially deadly until months later when I randomly stumbled upon a picture of a very similar cone snail online,” said Frank. Cone snails mostly live in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea and are thought to be one of the most venomous creatures on earth. Divers Alert Network says there are roughly 600 species of cone snails in the world and every single one is poisonous. Their advice: “You shouldn’t be picking anything up in the sea, for your own safety and the marine life’s.”
