Elephant Puppets lionfish update 🐟
5Pterois is a genus of venomous marine fish, commonly known as lionfish, native to the Indo-Pacific. It is characterized by conspicuous warning coloration with red or black bands, and ostentatious dorsal fins tipped with venomous spines.[3][4] Pterois radiata, Pterois volitans, and Pterois miles are the most commonly studied species in the genus. Pterois species are popular aquarium fish.[3] P. volitans and P. miles are recent and significant invasive species in the west Atlantic, Caribbean Sea and Mediterranean Sea.[5][6][7]
Pterois was described as a genus in 1817 by German naturalist, botanist, biologist, and ornithologist Lorenz Oken. 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.[1][8][2] This genus is classified within the tribe Pteroini of the subfamily Scorpaeninae within the family Scorpaenidae.[9] The genus name Pterois is based on Georges Cuvier's 1816 French name, “Les Pterois”, meaning "fins" which is an allusion to the high dorsal and long pectoral fins.[10]
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “lionfish have distinctive brown or maroon, and white stripes or bands covering the head and body. They have fleshy tentacles above their eyes and below the mouth; fan-like pectoral fins; long, separated dorsal spines; 13 dorsal spines; 10-11 dorsal soft rays; 3 anal spines; and 6-7 anal soft rays. An adult lionfish can grow as large as 18 inches.”[14]
Juvenile lionfish have a unique tentacle located above their eye sockets that varies in phenotype between species.[15] The evolution of this tentacle is suggested to serve to continually attract new prey; studies also suggest it plays a role in sexual selection.[15]
Pterois species can live from 5 to 15 years and have complex courtship and mating behaviors.[16] Females frequently release two mucus-filled egg clusters, which can contain as many as 15,000 eggs.[16][17]
All species are aposematic; they have conspicuous coloration with boldly contrasting stripes and wide fans of projecting spines, advertising their ability to defend themselves.[18]
Pterois prey mostly on small fish, invertebrates, and mollusks, with up to six different species of prey found in the gastrointestinal tracts of some specimens. Lionfish feed most actively in the morning.[19] Lionfish are skilled hunters, using specialized swim bladder muscles to provide precise control of their location in the water column, allowing them to alter their center of gravity to better attack prey.[19] They blow jets of water while approaching prey, which serves to confuse them[20] and alter the orientation of the prey so that the smaller fish is facing the lionfish. This results in a higher degree of predatory efficiency as head-first capture is easier for the lionfish.[21] The lionfish then spreads its large pectoral fins and swallows its prey in a single motion.[16]