Red lionfish

To about 38 cm, banded in red-brown, white and dark brown, with very long separated pectoral fin rays and thirteen venomous dorsal spines. It is separated from Pterois miles on fin-ray counts rather than on anything visible underwater, and from the spotfin lionfish by the plain rather than spotted pectoral membranes. Juveniles are common around jetty pilings.

It hunts small fish and crustaceans at dusk and after dark, spreading the pectoral fins to herd prey against a surface and taking it in a single fast strike; a diver’s torch beam is used as a hunting aid by lionfish that have learned to follow it. In this region it is an ordinary part of the fauna, kept in check by native predators and parasites; the destructive invasive populations are in the western Atlantic and Mediterranean. Recorded from about 1 to 50 m.