Neurotoxic Bioaccumulation in Land Vertebrates

Bioaccumulation and Biomagnification are common concerns in marine environments, with natural examples like Ciguatera being a well known example caused by an algae that grows on coral that is then concentrated in the bodies of predatory fish like barracudas.

My world building question is can such a thing occur on land, and can it occur with less steps in the food chain?

The scenario is as follows:

• There's a poisonous plant that grows in abundance on an isolated continent.
• A large herbivore eats it and stores the fat soluble toxin in its body.
• The human settlers eat the herbivores because they're quite tasty and are better than sea biscuits and failed crops.
• The human settlers then slowly go insane over the next few weeks before ultimately succumbing to constant seizures and organ failure.

Is this plausible? Is there some fundamental principle of ecology and toxicology that I'm missing? Any suggestions if it's implausible?

NOTE: There are large predators that have even more of the toxin, to the point that settlers who eat it die within hours.

posted almost 5 years ago

NixonCranium‭

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