Bad News Beauties

Kiara McFadden

Principles of Biology I

Professor Burrell

September 24, 2006

Raloff, J.: "Bad-News Beauties" Science News

Within the past ten years, lionfish with red, black, and white stripes on its body, fins, and dozens of spines along its head, back, and sides have been increasingly showing up along the eastern coast of the United States from North Carolina to Florida. This is a big problem for domestic fish that already live in these areas. These fish are shaped like a football, can grow up to eighteen inches, and are poisonous to the touch.

There are several said ways as to how these fish entered the coast. Many biologists say that it was due to Hurricane Andrew in 1995. The reason for this is because it destroyed a Miami home on Biscayne Bay that contained an aquarium with six red lionfish in it. Several of the lionfish were spotted in the Bay shortly after the hurricane hit. Walter R. Courtenay, a fisheries biologist at the United States Geological Survey in Gainesville, Florida says that the first sighting of a red lionfish in North America in the mid-1980s after it was caught in a pier in Lake Worth, Florida. Others believe hobbyists might have released pet lionfish into the water that have outgrown their aquariums.

It is not a known fact as to how and when the red lionfish go to the southeastern coast of the United States from their native homes in the South Pacific, Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea but it is known that they have become well established in Bermuda and the Bahamas. They are breeding, growing faster than they normally do, and in their new homes they are unappetizing to their normal predators.

Red lionfish have no fear. They approach divers swimming nearby rather than moving away. They sometimes attack the diver. If the tip of the spine breaks the diver's skin, they will experience intense pain and swelling at the site where the skin was pierced and the person would end up in the hospital.

As a member of the scorpion fish family, the red lionfish has venom stored in the bases of its spines. If the spine is pushed inward, it triggers toxin to shoot up the hollow spine to its tip. Even a dead lionfish can release venom if its spines are pushed.

Red lionfish had been previously spotted in Florida, but they hadn't been spotted in North Carolina until about six years ago. In 2004, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) researchers in North Carolina reported the first evidence that the red lionfish were reproducing along the United States coastline.

Baby read lionfish have been spotted