A fish that looks like a display: banded red-brown and white, pectoral fins fanned into wings, eighteen venomous spines standing along the back and a pair of fleshy tentacles over the eyes. Up to 43 cm (17 in), and in no hurry at any point.
The fins are hunting equipment. A lionfish herds small fish by spreading the pectorals into a wall and walking them backwards into a corner, then takes them with a strike too fast to follow - and it can do this in the open because nothing wants to bite something covered in spines. Some of the herding is done by blowing a jet of water at the prey, which turns the fish to face the lionfish, and a fish that is facing you is easier to swallow head-first.
The venom is defensive only. Each dorsal, pelvic and anal spine has glandular tissue in a groove, delivered when something presses down on the sheath; the sting is intensely painful, swells hard, and is treated with water as hot as the victim can stand, around 45 C, because the toxin is protein and breaks down with heat. Deaths are extremely rare, hospital visits are not.
Here it is an ordinary reef fish that belongs. In the Caribbean and the western Atlantic, where it arrived through the aquarium trade in the 1980s, the same animal has become the most damaging marine invasion on record - no predators, no parasites, a female spawning about two million eggs a year, and reef fish that have never learned to avoid the shape.
The genus. Pterois Oken 1817 - pterus (fin). ETYFish
The species. Pterois miles (Bennett 1828) - soldier. ETYFish
- long fanned pectoral fins held spread, banded red-brown and white
- row of long venomous spines along the back, each with a loose skin sheath
- pair of fleshy tentacles above the eyes
- length up to 43 cm
Why it's threatened
There are no known major threats to Pterois miles in the Persian Gulf.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
