Methylparaben caused a 26%, albeit non-significant, inhibitionof CE activity in T. scabrus. Parabens are esters of 4-hydroxybenzoicacid used as antimicrobial agents, and as esters they are suscepti-ble to be actively metabolized by CEs (Ozaki et al., 2013). Althoughit was not the aim of this study, hydrolysis of methylparaben byfish CE should not be totally excluded. Finally, benzotriazole is aUV-stabilizer very resistant to biodegradation and behaving as anendocrine disruptor in fish (He et al., 2012). This preservative hasbeen detected at concentrations as high as 316 ng/g lipid weight(mean concentration of the sum of nine benzotriazoles) in dem-ersal and pelagic fish collected from the Manila Bay in Philippines(Kim et al., 2011). Despite the environmental concern of this PCP,it caused no decrease of CE activity in our marine organisms.