Mercury and selenium concentrations in marine shrimps of NW Mexico: health risk assessment.

We determined total Hg and Se contents of hepatopancreas, exoskeleton, and muscle, and the Se:Hg molar ratios in the muscle of shrimps Farfantepenaeus californiensis and Litopenaeus stylirostris caught in NE Pacific Mexican waters. Total Hg mean values in muscle, hepatopancreas, and exoskeleton were 0.31 ± 0.26, 0.28 ± 0.29, and 0.24 ± 0.06 μg g-1, and 0.46 ± 0.46, 0.41 ± .034, and 0.24 ± 0.06 μg g-1 for F. californiensis and L. stylirostris, respectively. In all tissues, the mean concentrations of Se tended to be close to one order of magnitude higher than the respective Hg values. In F. californiensis, the hepatopancreas of the larger commercial size had significantly (p < 0.05) higher Hg content than smaller sizes, but correlations size-Hg concentration calculated for each tissue of either species were not significant. The Hg content of the muscle of all commercial sizes of both species was lower than the permissible limit and their Se:Hg ratios in all sizes were higher than 1, indicating low risk for human consumption.