Pacific Predator Invades Atlantic

[ricki]

An update on lionfish. Saw some in their native digs over in the Red Sea, but only at night. Despite looking in quite a few crevices and caves never saw any in daylight, only at night. At night they seemed to follow the diving light along. Honza with the Lighthouse Dive Center in Hurghada warned they might do that. They lap up fish that might be attracted or stunned by the light. He also said they can move at blinding speed as established by a night video clip slowed down to identify a blurred object. He indicated that in daylight they might see them in caves but near the walls. At night they range more out into the open. I only spent 9 days in the Red Sea diving in a lot of varied areas but my impression is that they are more common in the Bahamas, all be it in crevices and wrecks in the day than in the Red Sea by a good margin. Also, the Red Sea lionfish displayed a curious defensive perhaps offense mannerism. They rotate their body nose downward placing dorsal fins forward and swim in that direction. In other words, spears outward and advance. I have several video clips to process showing this, stay tuned.

Some summary comments from a discussion on Facebook:
Supposedly the cornetfish is a predator in the Pacific, not sure if they act in that role here or not. Individuals have been found in grouper guts. Still, once the lionfish grow to much size, it would be a lot for some groupers to choke down. Kent shot a couple over in Bimini to see what some nearby reef sharks might do about it. They ignored which is fairly unusual when it comes to speared fish. I've heard from folks diving off Jacksonville, FL that say they see 15 on a typical wreck dive. I understand they occur out to about 250 ft., so spearing may provide limited results. I have one report of a single juvenal being seen under a sargassum mat along the shore in Miami. If they spend part of their life cycle drifting over pelagic grass mats northward with the Florida Current/Gulfstream and if they propagated in the Bahamas and Caribbean, it might explain the distribution to date. Bermuda, northern Florida up the east coast to Long Island. The Stream peppers them along the east coast, they die off in the winter along the northern stretches like other reef fish that end up in those parts. Aside from counter current eddies on the western margin of the current, there may be little to transport lionfish to SE Florida. Then there is the extensive distribution over the Bahamian plateau down through Turks and Caicos, not sure about transport mechanisms there aside from mats drifting with prevailing winds.

Just came across a summary of lionfish in their natural habitat and in our area too;

http://www.dive-the-world.com/creatures-lionfish.php