Lionfish found in Brazil related to those in Caribbean
A lionfish with relatives in the Caribbean has been speared off the coast of Brazil, marking the furthest point south ever documented for the invasive species and raising new concerns about its range, scientists said.
A lionfish with relatives in the Caribbean has been speared off the coast of Brazil, marking the furthest point south ever documented for the invasive species and raising new concerns about its range, scientists said.
Marked by elaborate orange, brown and black stripes, lionfish are native to the Indo-Pacific but were introduced to northwest Atlantic waters in the 1980s, likely when someone along Florida's east coast released their aquarium fish into the ocean, experts say.
Since then, lionfish have spread north as far as Massachusetts in the summer months and have penetrated deep into the Caribbean, using their venomous spines to scare off bigger predators and eating up countless numbers of young and valuable reef fish.
Described on Thursday in the journal , the 25cm adult lionfish, Pterois volitans, was spotted off the southeastern coast of Brazil and killed by divers in May last year.
Its genetic analysis shows that this was not another aquarium introduction but likely a relative of the invasive fish that have made their home in the Caribbean. "Our finding at Arraial do Cabo, a subtropical reef about 5,500km away from the Caribbean, is surprising," said the study led by Luiz Rocha, curator of ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences, along with experts at the Brazilian National Research Agency.
"The DNA sequences from the Brazilian lionfish matched the Caribbean individuals of Pterois volitans," it added.
"It is our opinion that the lionfish recorded here arrived in Brazil via natural larval dispersal from the Caribbean."
Not only can lionfish withstand long periods of starvation as well as eat their prey into extinction, they can also spread far and wide, explained Elizabeth Underwood, lionfish programme coordinator at the Florida-based non-profit group Reef, which was notified of the Brazil lionfish sighting in May.
Humans are the main predators of lionfish, which can be caught by divers with spears, or in spiny lobster traps. They rarely eat bait off fishing lines.
