What do lionfish eat and where do lionfish live?
Lionfish are voracious predators. However, they do not use their spines to capture prey; only for protection. When hunting, they corner prey using their large fins and then use their quick reflexes to swallow the prey whole. They hunt primarily from late afternoon to dawn. lionfish eat smaller fish and invertebrates, In captivity, lionfish can be trained to eat frozen brine shrimp, mysis, and krill. The lionfish is native to the tropical Indo-Pacific region of the world, but various species can be found worldwide. Due to a recent introduction, the lionfish has been spotted in the warmer coral regions of the eastern Atlantic Ocean around the Azores and extending into the Mediterranean Sea, and also in the Caribbean Sea. It has been speculated that this introduction may well have been caused when Hurricane Andrew destroyed an aquarium in southern Florida. DNA from captured lionfish in this region shows that they all originated from the same six or seven fish
