A transparent larva carrying pectoral fins spread wider than the body is long.
A clear or lightly silvered larva with an oversized head, a large eye and pectoral fins fanned out on either side, often spread wider than the whole body is long. In lionfish larvae the fin rays are separate and trail beyond the membrane, so the animal hangs in the water inside a circle of fine spokes. Pigment is limited to a few spots along the gut and over the head, and the rest is glass.
The fins do two things at once. They slow the larva’s sinking, which matters to an animal with no swim bladder worth the name and a long pelagic stage to get through, and they make it look larger and harder to swallow than it is. The same fish, settled and grown, becomes an animal that spends its life on the bottom and barely moves; the pelagic stage is where the dispersal happens.
The family cannot be taken further than that from a photograph in most cases. Lionfish larvae are separable by the free pectoral rays; the scorpionfishes, stonefishes and waspfishes produce larvae that overlap in appearance and are usually logged at family level. Taken on blackwater dives across the region, most often in the first half of the dive and in the upper part of the water column.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
