Pterois miles is a popular aquarium fish. They are stripped from the wild to make money for the popular pet industry.
The lionfish has a beautifully banded head and body with reddish or golden brown bands stretching across a yellow background. The dorsal and anal fins possess dark rows of spots on a clear background.
Pterois miles are differentiated from other scorpionfishes by having 13 rather than 12 poisonous dorsal spines and 14 long, feather-like pectoral rays. The anal fin has 3 spines and 6-7 rays.
Pterois miles can grow to a maximum length of 38 cm.
Some other noteworthy characteristics of Pterois miles are the bony ridge across the cheek and the flaps that partially cover both the eyes and nose. They also possess a "tentacle" above both eyes.
Other Physical Features: bilateral symmetry
Average lifespan
Status: wild: 10.0 years.
Lionfish are primarily reef associated but also found in warm, marine water of the tropics (Grant, 1999). They tend to glide along the rocks and coral during the night and hide out in caves and crevices during the day.
Aquatic Biomes: reef ; coastal
Native Range:
Indo-Pacific: western Australia and Malaysia to the Marquesas Islands and Oeno; north to southern Japan and southern Korea; south to Lord Howe, Kermadec, and Austral Island ( map of the indigenous occurrances of Pterois miles).
Nonnative Range:
Pterois miles was introduced to Key Biscayne, Florida when a beachside aquarium broke during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Furthermore, the intentional release of aquarium pets has contributed to the Florida population (USGS, 1999). It is not know what the biological implications of this introduction might be ( map showing the nonindigenous occurrences of Pterois miles).
Pterois miles is one of the top levels of the food web in many coral reef environments. They are known to feed mostly on crustaceans (as well as other invertebrates) and small fishes, which include juveniles of their own species. Pterois miles consumes an average of 8.2 times its body weight per year (USGS, 1999). As juveniles they consume 5.5-13.5 g per day and 14.6 g a day as adults.
Sunset is an optimal time for Pterois miles to begin feeding because this is when activity in the coral reef is highest. At sunset, all of the day fish and invertebrates make their way to a resting spot for the night and all of the night fish come out to begin feeding. With all of these creatures around, the lionfish need not invest much energy to find a meal. They simply glide upwards along the rock and coral sneaking up on unexpecting prey from below. While moving slowly towards a small fish, Pterois miles uses its open pectoral rays to shield the motion of its caudal fin. This shielding along with the cryptic coloration of the predator prevents the prey from becoming alarmed. Although we find the striped colorful pattern of the lionfish obvious and easy to see in an aquarium setting, in the coral reef this colorful pattern allows the fish to blend into the background of coral branches, feather-stars, and spiny sea urchins.
The lionfish attacks with one swift gulping motion that sucks the prey into its mouth. This attack is so quick and smooth that if the victim is among a group of fish, the other fish in the group may not even notice what happened. The lionfish can continue to hunt the other unaware members of the group.
Pterois miles has also been known to hunt for fish in the open water near the surface with a different technique. Here they wait 20-30 cm below the surface and watch for small schools of fish leaping out of the water in an attempt to escape another predator. When they plunge back into the water the lionfish is waiting just below them ready to attack (Fishelson, 1975)
In addition to fish, Pterois miles feed on invertebrates such as amphipods, isopods, and other crustaceans. The lionfish glides along the substrate (rocks or sand) and vibrates the rays on its fins in order the rustle the food out of hiding.
In general, the lionfish is stationary and feeds on as many fish as it can when fish are plentiful and then it fasts when food is scarce (Fishelson, 1997). When a lot of food is available for feeding, Pterois miles becomes satiated or full and may not eat for at least 24 hours (Fishelson, 1997).
Lionfish invest most of their energy in growing to a large body size early in life. This tactic allows them to grow big at a fairly young age so that they are more likely to avoid attack by predators and increase their chances of mating successfully (Stearns and Crandall, 1984).
If a male lionfish meets another male while hunting, the more aggressive male will turn darker in color and point its poisonous, spiny dorsal fins at the other individual who usually folds down its pectoral fins and swims away.
None
Pterois miles is not currently listed as threatened or endangered. However, the increase in pollution in coral reefs is expected to kill many of the fish and crustaceans, which lionfish depend on. If lionfish are unable to adjust to these changes by selecting alternate food sources, it is expected that their populations will also decrease (Fishelson, 1997).
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
Perception Channels: tactile ; chemical
The pain of a lionfish sting delivered to a human can last for days and cause suffering, sweating and respiratory depression (Grant, 1999). Experimental evidence suggests that commercial stonefish antivenom does have some detoxifying affect on lionfish venom (Shiomi et al, 1989).
Only while courting will Pterois miles aggregate with other individuals. In this special case, one male will aggregate with several females to form groups of 3-8 fish.
When lionfish are ready to reproduce, the physical differences between the sexes become more obvious. Males turn darker and are more uniformly colored (their stripes are not as apparent). Females with ripening eggs become paler. Their belly, pharyngeal region, and mouth become silvery white. Such females are easy for the males to spot in the darkness.
Courtship begins just before dark and is always initiated by the males. After the male searches out a female, he rests next to her on the substrate and looks toward the water surface while propping himself up on his ventral fins. He then proceeds to circle the female. After circling several times, the male then ascends to the water surface with the female following behind. While ascending the female will tremble her pectoral fins. The couple may descend and ascend several times before spawning. On the final ascent the couple will swim around just under the surface of the water. The female will then release her spawn. These spawn are comprised of two hollow mucus tubes that float just below the surface upon release. After approximately 15 minutes, these tubes fill up with seawater and become oval balls 2 to 5 cm in diameter. Within these mucosal balls lie 1-2 layers of individual eggs. The number of eggs per ball varies from 2,000 to 15,000. As the female spawn are released, the male releases his sperm, which penetrate the mucosal balls and fertilize the eggs inside.
Twelve hours after fertilization the embryo begins to form. Only 18 hours after fertilization, the head and eyes become moderately developed. Eventually, invading microbes deteriorate the mucus walls and 36 hours after fertilization, the larvae hatch. Four days after conception, the larvae are already good swimmers and are able to begin feeding on small ciliates (Fishelson, 1975).
The Indo-Pacific lionfishes Pterois volitans and P. miles (in the scorpionfish family, Scorpaenidae) were at one time not distinguished from each other, but today they are widely recognized as distinct species based on morphometric and mitochondrial DNA analyses (Hamner et al. 2007; Betancur-R. et al. 2011; Eschmeyer 2012). Both of these predatory, venomous species have achieved notoriety during the past decade as they have invaded the western Atlantic with extraordinary speed, raising major concerns about their impacts on native hard-bottom, mangrove, seagrass, and coral reef communities. These lionfishes have now been far more thoroughly studied in the western Atlantic than in their native range. In a study in the Bahamas (Green et al. 2012), lionfish abundance was found to have increased rapidly between 2004 and 2010, by which time lionfish accounted for nearly 40% of the total predator biomass in the system. This increase in lionfish abundance coincided with a rapid (over just two years) 65% decline in the biomass of the 42 Atlantic fishes recorded as lionfish prey.
The lionfish invasion has spread all along the coastal Yucatan Peninsula, including the entire Mesoamerican coral reef, and throughout the Caribbean as far as Venezuela (Valdez-Moreno et al. 2012). Lionfish were first recorded in the western Atlantic in 2000. They have been established from Miami to North Carolina (U.S.A.) since 2002, around the Greater Antilles since 2007, and around the Florida Keys and Gulf of Mexico since 2009. Lionfish were numerous around Bermuda by 2004 and established in the Bahamas by 2005. Since 2009, lionfish have extended their range to include the Caribbean coasts of Mexico and Central and South America to Venezuela. It is unclear whether they will be able to spread south of Brazil or Uruguay. Juveniles can be found as far north as Rhode Island (U.S.A.), but under current climate conditions they apparently cannot withstand winter temperatures north of North Carolina. Lionfishes are the first nonnative marine fishes to establish in the western North Atlantic and Caribbean, althoughat one time or another dozens of of non-native marine fishes (most from the Indo-Pacific) have been documented in the coastal waters off Florida. (Schofield 2010) The native range for P. volitans is the Indo-West Pacific: Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean and in the western Pacific from French Polynesia and the Line Islands to Australia and Japan. The native range for P. miles is in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean: East and South Africa, Madagascar, and the Mascarenes east to Indonesia; P. miles has reached the Mediterranean Sea from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal. (Eschmeyer 2012)
The establishment of lionfish in the western Atlantic is believed to be the result of accidental or intentional releases from aquaria. Genetic analyses have revealed a striking reduction in genetic diversity in introduced populations relative to their native ranges (Hamner et al. 2007; Betancur-R. et al. 2011), but this has not caused any obvious problems for these new populations, which reach densities far higher than do populations in their native range (Kulbicki et al. 2012). Mitochondrial DNA screening of western Atlantic lionfish has shown that while P. miles is restricted to the northernmost locations (Bermuda and the east coast of the United States), P. volitans is ubiquitous and much more abundant (Betancur-R. et al. 2011).Discouragingly, modeling by Barbour et al. (2011) suggests that effective lionfish removal programs would be very difficult to implement and maintain.
The venom-packing spines of lionfish pose a danger to anyone handling them.
Albins and Lyons (2012) reported a previously undescribed technique used by P. volitans to capture fish prey. While slowly approaching prey, lionfish produce jets of water directed toward their prey. These jets may confuse or distract prey and often result in prey fish facing the attacking lionfish, increasing the probability of head-first capture and swallowing.
Morris et al. (2009) provided an overview of the biology and ecology of P. volitans and P. miles.
The red lionfish (Pterois volitans) is a venomous coral reef fish in the family Scorpaenidae, order Scorpaeniformes. It is mainly native to the Indo-Pacific region, but has become an invasive species in the Caribbean Sea, as well as along the East Coast of the United States and East Mediterranean and also found in Brazil at Fernando de Noronha.[2]
P. volitans and a similar relative, Pterois miles, have both been deemed invasive species. Red lionfish are clad in white stripes alternated with red, maroon or brown stripes. Adults in this species can grow as large as 47 cm (18.5 in)[3] in length, making it one of the largest species of lionfish in the ocean, while juveniles are typically shorter than 1 inch (2.5 cm). The average red lionfish lives around 10 years.[4] As with many species within the family Scorpaenidae, it has large, venomous spines on its dorsal fin (13) as well as other venomous spines on its pelvic fins (2) and anal fins (3). It is these fins together with the other long non-venomous fins which create an appearance similar to a mane, giving it the common name "lionfish". The dorsal spines deter most potential predators. Lionfish reproduce monthly and are able to quickly disperse during their larval stage for expansion of their invasive region. No definitive predators of the lionfish are known, and many organizations are promoting the harvest and consumption of lionfish in efforts to prevent further increases in the already high population densities.
The red lionfish was first formally described in 1758 as Gasterosteus volitans by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae in which he gave the type locality as Ambon Island in Indonesia.[5] In 1856 the French naturalist Eugène Anselme Sébastien Léon Desmarest designated Scorpaena volitans, which had been named by Bloch in 1787 and which was the same as Linnaeus's 1758 Gasterosteus volitans, as the type species of the genus Pterois which had been originally described by Oken in 1817.[6] A molecular study of this species , the common lionfish, the luna lionfish and Russell's lionfish found that the common lionfishes in the western Indian Ocean formed a lineage, that a second lineage consisted of both the luna lionfish and Russell's lionfish, suggesting these two taxa are conspecific, while the red lionfish formed a third lineage which appeared to have genetic contributions from the other two lineages. This suggests that the red lionfish arose from hybrids between P. miles and P. russelii sensu lato.[7] The specific name volitans means "flying", presumed to be a reference to the large pectotral fins resembling wings.[8]
P. volitans is native to the Indo-Pacific region,[9] including the western and central Pacific and off the coast of western Australia. However, the species has been accidentally introduced into the Western Atlantic, becoming an invasive species there and in the northern Gulf of Mexico as well.
They are mainly a solitary species and courting is the only time they aggregate, generally one male with several females.[4] Both P. volitans and P. miles are gonochoristic and only show sexual dimorphism during reproduction. Similar courtship behaviors are observed in all Pterois species, including circling, sidewinding, following, and leading. The lionfish are mostly nocturnal, leading to the behaviors typically around nightfall and continuing through the night. After courtship, the female releases two egg masses, fertilized by the male before floating to the surface. The embryos secrete an adhesive mucous allowing them to attach to nearby intertidal rocks and corals before hatching. During one mating session, females can lay up to 30,000 eggs. However, it has been observed that females will lay more eggs in the warmer months.[10]
In its invasive range, few predators of the lionfish have been documented. Most larger Atlantic and Caribbean fish and sharks that should be able to eat the lionfish have not recognized them as prey, likely due to the novelty of the fish in the invaded areas. Lionfish have, however, been found in the stomachs of Nassau and tiger groupers in the Bahamas,[11] but the former is critically endangered and therefore highly unlikely to provide significant predation. In its native range, two species of moray eels were found preying on lionfish.[12] The Bobbit worm, an ambush predator, has been filmed preying upon lionfish in Indonesia;[13] similar species inhabit the Caribbean.
The lionfish themselves are voracious feeders and have outcompeted and filled the niche of the overfished snapper and grouper. They are known to feed mostly on crustaceans, as well as other invertebrates, and small fishes, which include juveniles of their own species.[14][15] When hunting, they corner prey using their large fins, then use their quick reflexes to swallow the prey whole. They hunt primarily from late afternoon to dawn. High rates of prey consumption, a wide variety of prey, and increasing abundance of the fish lead to concerns the fish may have a very active role in the already declining trend of fish densities.[16] As the fish become more abundant, they are becoming a threat to the fragile ecosystems they have invaded. Between outcompeting similar fish and having a varied diet, the lionfish is drastically changing and disrupting the food chains holding the marine ecosystems together. As these chains are disrupted, declining densities of other fish populations are found, as well as declines in the overall diversity of coral reef areas.
Although little is known about the larval stage of the lionfish, some traits of the larvae include a large head, a long, triangular snout, long, serrated head spines, a large pelvic spine, and coloration only in the pelvic fins. Larvae hatch 36 hours after fertilization.[4] They are good swimmers and can eat small ciliates just four days after conception.[4] The larval stage is the shortest stage of the lionfish's life, with a duration of about one month.[17]
Lionfish venomous dorsal spines are used purely for defense. They are slow swimmers, so when threatened, the fish turns these spines towards its attacker, even if this means swimming upside down. However, its sting is usually not fatal to humans. Envenomed humans will experience extreme pain, and possibly headaches, vomiting, and breathing difficulties. A common treatment is soaking the afflicted area in hot water, as very few hospitals carry specific treatments.[18][19][20] However, immediate emergency medical attention is strongly recommended, as some people are more sensitive to the venom than others.
Two of the 15 species of Pterois, P. volitans and P. miles, have established themselves as significant invasive species off the East Coast of the United States and in the Caribbean. About 93% of the invasive lionfish population is the red lionfish.[21] The red lionfish was likely first introduced off the Florida coast in the early to mid-1980s,[22] almost certainly from the aquarium trade.[23] Adult lionfish specimens are now found along the East Coast from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Florida, and in Bermuda, the Bahamas, and throughout the Caribbean, including the Turks and Caicos, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, St. Croix, Belize, Honduras, Aruba, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Saint Lucia, St. Martin, and Mexico.[24] It also is in Brazil at Fernando de Noronha.[25]
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) The red lionfish (Pterois volitans) is a venomous coral reef fish in the family Scorpaenidae, order Scorpaeniformes. It is mainly native to the Indo-Pacific region, but has become an invasive species in the Caribbean Sea, as well as along the East Coast of the United States and East Mediterranean and also found in Brazil at Fernando de Noronha.
P. volitans and a similar relative, Pterois miles, have both been deemed invasive species. Red lionfish are clad in white stripes alternated with red, maroon or brown stripes. Adults in this species can grow as large as 47 cm (18.5 in) in length, making it one of the largest species of lionfish in the ocean, while juveniles are typically shorter than 1 inch (2.5 cm). The average red lionfish lives around 10 years. As with many species within the family Scorpaenidae, it has large, venomous spines on its dorsal fin (13) as well as other venomous spines on its pelvic fins (2) and anal fins (3). It is these fins together with the other long non-venomous fins which create an appearance similar to a mane, giving it the common name "lionfish". The dorsal spines deter most potential predators. Lionfish reproduce monthly and are able to quickly disperse during their larval stage for expansion of their invasive region. No definitive predators of the lionfish are known, and many organizations are promoting the harvest and consumption of lionfish in efforts to prevent further increases in the already high population densities.
Red lionfish in Indonesia
