29.05.12 Invasive Lionfish catch
Today at GVI we had a rather unpleasant suprise! while I was out training two of our volunteers in the monitoring methedology, Jim, another staff member on the dive, saw six Pterois volitans, Lionfish, at one dive site (Lat: 20.01573, Lon: -87.27740). This is truely a testament to the rapid invasion of this species. Jim managed to spear all six and disected each.
Here are the genders, sizing and stomach contects of each:
- Female-25cm-1x juvinile filefish sp.
- Male- 36cm- 2x juvinile surgenfish sp.
- Male- 32cm- 2x unidentified juvinile fish sp.
- Unidentified gender- 34cm- empty
- Male- 37cm- empty
- Male- 34cm- empty
Besides their mature size, what was also worrying was that the female had quite ripe ovaries.
Ben