Lionfish--Flamboyant Badasses of the Reef

This beautiful little baby is a Volitans pterois, otherwise known as a lionfish.

While they may not look particularly violent or dangerous, those spines are filled with venom that can kill other fish and cause extreme pain and breathing difficulties in humans.

Lionfish are carnivorous and attack their prey by herding it by alternating motions of their pectoral fins. When a fish tries to escape, however, the lionfish will stab it and thereby stun it with it's spine. Once stunned, the lionfish will swallow its prey whole.

Each lionfish generally leaves a solitary life unless they are breeding or in infancy. In fact, lionfish will remain hidden in caves floating suspended and ignore other fish, unless they want to eat one. Perhaps more interesting, lionfish males will mate with about three different females. Thus, lionfish are not dangerous and excellent hunters, they are also "players," to use a vernacular term.

Lionfish also do not fear humans who scuba dive. In fact, lionfish often sting divers and cause much more serious effects than the many jellyfish species. This does, however, enable

lionfish to be easy captured for the aquarium industry.

In response to the growth of the aquarium industry, lionfish leaked into the ocean from "recycled" aquariums, causing an invasion in the Georgia and Florida Atlantic coastline. As these fish are particularly "bad ass" due to the aforementioned reasons, their species remains unchecked and have few predators. Thus, they are slowly taking over coastal habitats.

These are both pictures taken at the Georgia Aquarium, aka the most amazing place ever.

Obviously, I take a strong liking to these creatures due to their bizarre natural history.