Lionfish

• The lionfish (𝘗𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴) is a species native to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. In the Mediterranean Sea the first specimen was recorded in 2012, in Lebanon.

• Lionfish act as competitors to native predators, as they prey on various native species. Very few Mediterranean species prey on them except some large groupers, octopus and moray eels.

• In a sea already threatened by overfishing and pollution, lionfish's impact is catastrophic.

• Once an alien species is established in a large marine ecosystem, it cannot be eradicated.

• It arrived through the Suez Canal from the Red Sea, and since then spread rapidly up to Tunisia and Sicily. It is considered an invasive alien species.

• Females are highly fecund, able to spawn every 2-3 days and release 2 million eggs per year. Lionfish possess 18 venomous spines (13 on their back, 2 on their stomach and 3 below their tail) that can cause extreme pain.

• The lionfish invasion in the Western Atlantic, which started in the late 90s, had massive detrimental ecological effects on local ecosystems. In the Bahamas, small fish biomass was reduced by 65% in only 2 years.

• But to control the invasion at the local scale, removal programs are useful. Lionfish can be hunted by trained divers using hand spears, and are safe to eat once their venomous spines are removed. Lionfish removal has shown to significantly reduce their populations on shallow depths, but it needs constant maintaining.