01/07/2026
The beautiful, highly adaptable and invasive lionfish outside of the Indo-Pacific. Lionfish were first discovered in Florida in 1985 and since then have become the plague of the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic from Brazil to North Carolina in the U.S.
1️⃣ The long dorsal fins along the spine of the lionfish are venomous, and the perfect deterrent for predators.
2️⃣Females can release approximately 30,000 eggs every 3-4 days, resulting in up to 2 million eggs annually.
3️⃣️ They eat almost anything smaller than their own mouths and they have large mouths, including shrimp, crabs, and over 70 species of native fish. They can consume prey up to half their body size and they suck up juvenile fish like the world's biggest vacuum cleaner.
4️⃣ Lionfish can live up to 15 years.
In their native Indo-Pacific and Red Sea habitats, lionfish populations are kept in check by natural predators like large groupers, sharks, and moray eels. For years divers in the Caribbean have been killing lionfish and feeding them to local predators in the hope that they will learn to hunt them on their own. Unfortunately, they will gladly eat the free hand-out, but there is little evidence that they are actively hunting them.
