Venomous-spined fish that hold still and rely on not being seen. Every entry in this group carries a hazard note, which is unusual: it is the only group in the index where that is true of all of them.
Three habits divide it. The lionfishes hang in the open with the fins spread, from the red lionfish, native and unremarkable here, down to the smaller zebra, dwarf, spotfin, clearfin, frillfin and twin-spot species. The scorpionfishes proper sit as lumps of algae-covered rock and are found by outline: the devil scorpionfish flashing the orange inside of a pectoral fin, the raggy and tasselled species with a fringe of skin tassels along the jaw. The buried group does not move at all - the two stonefishes, the stingfishes and the whiteface waspfish, which buries in silt with only the pale chin showing.
The leaf-mimics are the ones most often walked over. The cockatoo and spiny waspfishes and the longspine waspfish drift with the surge like dead leaves and settle wherever they land; the leaf scorpionfish rocks in the same rhythm as the weed beside it and turns up in several colour forms on one site. Several of the group walk rather than swim, on free pectoral rays: one ray each side for the stingfishes, four for the spiny devilfish and the bearded ghoul.
The rhinopias are the group's rarities and its seasonal animals. The weedy and Eschmeyer's forms are present at a destination in some seasons and absent in others, and the lacy rhinopias is recorded here mainly from Papua New Guinea. The reef and estuarine stonefishes are at the other end of the same list: common enough, immobile, and the reason the advice about where hands and knees go exists at all.
Every one has a page. They are shown as a list rather than as pictures because nothing has been photographed or logged for them yet, and a species with nothing behind it should not sit in front of one that has.
How many of the 47 carry a record at each destination. A species usually carries several, so these do not add up to 47.
All 1316 species in one index, with filters for destination, rarity and hazard.
