The extremely poisonous lion fish is invading the Atlantic

One of the notorious invasive species - the lionfish, known for being voracious and able to eat competitors in the ecosystem, is believed to be invading the Atlantic.

In the face of the current situation, scientists and startups are devising ways to catch and kill these hungry invaders.

"It's really hard to describe how a lionfish eats because they do it in a snap," says Kristen Dahl, a PhD researcher at the University of Florida. Lion fish use a variety of complex tactics that no other fish in the world know to use. The attacks occurred so quickly that the nearby fish did not seem to notice.

Extremely poisonous lionfish are trending throughout the Atlantic.

With eye-catching colors, lionfish is quite popular in the aquarium business. For more than 25 years, it seems that aquarium owners have sometimes thrown unwanted lionfish originating from the Indian and Pacific regions into the Atlantic, according to the Atmospheric and Oceanic Authority. Country (NOAA).

Lion fish are actually very fast and strong, but their biggest advantage is novelty. Fish in the Atlantic simply do not know what is happening. Biologists call this phenomenon 'innocent prey'.

Since the first breeding populations were discovered off North Carolina in 2000, the lionfish has quickly overcome coastal environments in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.

"They show signs of rapid growth in 2004 along the Atlantic coast of the United States. We see lionfish rapidly spreading throughout the Caribbean and then the Gulf of Mexico ," said Pam Schofield, researcher. Biological biology at the US Geological Survey Agency said.

Currently, lionfish have had breeding populations in coastal waters of Venezuela, throughout the Caribbean coast and Gulf of Mexico.

Reports of lionfish sightings have been declining since their peak in 2010, but that is probably not because their populations have declined because lionfishes are so popular that the discovery of an individual is not. still remarkable.

What's more worrying is that lionfish are not easily caught using traditional fishing techniques, so several research groups and startups are developing new tools to manage the invasion. of this fish.

1. Why are lionfish destroyers compared to other predators?
2. The lionfish threatens the Atlantic