With respect to ichthyotoxicity, reports of massive fish kills have been reported in the Gulf of Mexico as far back as 1844. Originally, fish bioassay-guided fractionation was used to isolate the toxins, but accumulation in or food-web transfer by fish has not been regarded as a threat. Steidinger hypothesized that the presence of brevetoxin found in dolphin mortalities and prey mortalities in 1987-1988 were in part due to brevetoxin transfer through fish. While dangerous levels of brevetoxins have not been found in the muscles of live fish to date, the internal organs of fish are highly susceptible to dangerous levels of toxicity and should not be eaten. It is conjectured that chronic low-level exposure to brevetoxin metabolites can occur through shellfish and fish, although the effects of this have not been studied in detail and remain largely unknown.