A lionfish does not chase. It drifts up to a small fish with its pectoral fins spread into two wide fans and walks it slowly backwards into a corner - a rock face, a coral head, the roof of a cave - and when there is nowhere left to go, it strikes. The strike itself takes a fraction of a second.
There is a refinement to it that was only described relatively recently. Lionfish blow a directed jet of water at the prey they are stalking, and the jet turns the small fish to face them. Prey taken head first goes down more easily and has less chance of breaking away sideways, so the trick raises the hit rate, and the fish does it before most strikes.
The spines have nothing to do with any of that. The dorsal, pelvic and anal spines carry venom in grooves along their length, and while a sting from a fish this size will not kill a healthy adult, people describe the pain as the worst they have experienced, lasting hours.
This species belongs to the 🌊 Red Sea and the 🌊 Gulf of Aden and lives nowhere else, standing in for its Indo-Pacific twin throughout this sea. It rests in the open or in a crevice by day, over sand near reef, and hunts after dark.
The genus. Pteropterus Swainson 1839 - Ptero- (proposed as a subgenus of Pterois) + pterus (fin). ETYFish
The species. Pteropterus cinctus (Rüppell 1838) - belted or encircled. ETYFish
- brownish-red body with whitish lips
- diagonal reddish-brown band from supraocular tentacle to preoperculum
- five rusty flank bands with forking white stripes
- long soft rays on dorsal and anal fins with translucent membranes
