Lionfish (red and common lionfish)

How it lives

In their native Indo-Pacific range, lionfish often hide by day and hunt at dusk and night, using their wide fins to push prey into a corner and swallow it in one go. The long spines carry venom for defence, not for hunting. In the invaded Atlantic they are often active by day too. There, a female can release about two million eggs a year.

Where it goes

Adults stay on their home reef. The big movement is the invasion, spread by drifting larvae and by people, not by adults migrating. First Atlantic record off Florida in 1985; established from Miami to North Carolina by 2002; Bermuda 2004, Bahamas 2005, Cuba 2007, Jamaica and Dominican Republic 2008, Gulf of Mexico 2009. In the Mediterranean: Israel 1991, then Lebanon 2012, Turkey, Cyprus, Greece and Italy 2014 to 2015.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

Two species are involved. In the Atlantic, most invaders are red lionfish, Pterois volitans, with a few common lionfish, Pterois miles, but some scientists think many are hybrids. In the Mediterranean, P. miles came in through the Suez Canal side, and by 2024 it was found from the eastern basin to single records in Croatia and in the Alboran Sea off Spain. Single records do not mean it lives there yet.