420 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. XVIII, October 1964 
sional specimen of Lutianus bohar or an excep- 
tionally large Promicrops lanceolatus or murae- 
nid. However, early in 1962 the crew of the 
Sacred Hearts Mission ship, "St. Teretia,” were 
poisoned by a barracuda ( Sphyraena sp.) said 
to be about 3.5 ft long, which they had caught 
just outside the South Passage. 
Marakei 
Marakei is a small lagoon island in the north- 
ern Gilberts, lying some 60 miles to the north- 
east of Tarawa. The lagoon on Marakei is shal- 
low, although full of fish, and is connected with 
the sea by only two passages, one on the south- 
west and one on the east. Both passages are very 
shallow and almost dry at low spring tides. 
There are seven villages; the largest is Rawa- 
nawi, in the northwest, which is also the Gov- 
ernment Station where the medical dispensary 
and wireless station are situated. The Sacred 
Hearts Mission maintain a school at Rawanawi 
with two resident sisters and a resident parish 
priest, who were most helpful in this survey. 
There are two anchorages. The main one, for 
ships up to 150 tons and usuable only during 
east to southerly winds, is off Rawanawi, where 
there is a boat passage through the fringing reef. 
This anchorage, although poor, is better than 
the more southerly one by the western lagoon 
entrance. 
A more detailed survey of the toxic fish prob- 
blem was made on Marakei than on the other 
islands. Marakei was chosen for a variety of 
reasons, the most important being that the start 
of the toxicity in 1946 was recent enough to be 
clearly remembered by the Marakei people and 
it was said that they knew which alga was re- 
sponsible. The population on Marakei, about 
1,790 in 1958, is rather large for the size of the 
island, which is a mere 3.94 square miles in land 
area, and it is one of the most densely populated 
islands in the group. Although Marakei is not 
one of the "drought” islands, the rainfall, aver- 
aging 79 inches a year, is not high, and the 
people are accustomed to finding a large propor- 
tion of their food from marine sources. Thus, 
when the reef fronting the main village, Rawa- 
nawi, the most heavily populated area of a 
heavily populated island, suddenly began pro- 
ducing toxic fish, the Marakei people were very 
hard hit by the loss of a good proportion of their 
food supply. They were forced by the need for 
protein food to keep sampling this reef, in an 
effort to find out just what they could eat with- 
out fear of poisoning and what was too toxic. 
In this way a good local knowledge of the be- 
havior of the toxicity on this reef was gradually 
amassed by the older people of Marakei. 
The toxic reef on Marakei is the fringing reef 
on the west or lee side of the island (Fig. 2), 
extending from the vicinity of the village of 
Rawanawi southward to the village of Buota. 
MARAKEI 
173 °| 20 ' 
Fig. 2. Map of Marakei. 
The reef flat is narrow, with a few very shallow 
tide pools and small boulders. It is covered with 
fine algae and has a greenish aspect. Just below 
low water mark (see Fig. 3) where the reef 
never dries out, there is a belt of red-colored | 
algae. Beyond this the reef drops a little and is 1 
covered with a dense growth of millipore coral. 
Between the stands of coral there are deep sandy- 
bottomed channels, whose sides are lined with a 
great variety of marine life. There are a few 
red algae between the branches of the millipore 
coral, and some brilliant green species on the 
floor and sides of the channels; in places there 
