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:

1. Female-25cm-1x juvinile filefish sp.
2. Male- 36cm- 2x juvinile surgenfish sp.
3. Male- 32cm- 2x unidentified juvinile fish sp.
4. Unidentified gender- 34cm- empty
5. Male- 37cm- empty
6. Male- 34cm- empty

Besides their mature size, what was also worrying was that the female had quite ripe ovaries.

Ben

Posted on May 29, 2012 10:03 PM by sir-zeke