|
Back to Animals for Kids
The Lionfish is a beautiful and interesting looking fish with long tentacles, flashy fins, and bright stripes. However, in nature sometimes bright and beautiful means "dangerous" and that is the case with the lionfish. Its bright colors advertise its poisonous tentacles. The scientific name for the lionfish is Pterois. There are fifteen different species in the Pterois Genus of fish.
 What does it eat? Lionfish are good hunters. They don't actually use their poisonous tentacles to hunt. Once they are close to their prey they use their large pectoral fins to lunge at their prey and swallow it in a single bite. Some of their favorite food includes mollusks, smaller fishes, and invertebrates. How poisonous is it? The tentacles of the lionfish have stingers that are used for defense against predators. The sting is quite powerful and can be dangerous to humans. A lionfish sting is very painful and can cause a person to get very sick including fever and having trouble breathing. Most of the time people don't die from a lionfish sting, however. How big does a lionfish get? Lionfish grow to around 12 to 15 inches long and weigh around 2 ½ pounds. They can live 10 to 15 years in the wild. One of the most known species of lionfish is the red lionfish. It's known for its distinctive red, white, and dark maroon vertical stripes. These fish can have a number of tentacles and fins protruding, including 13 or more dorsal spines and tentacles above their eyes and below their mouths. Fun Facts about the Lionfish
For more about fish: Brook Trout Clownfish The Goldfish Great White Shark Largemouth Bass Lionfish Ocean Sunfish Mola Swordfish Back to Fish Back to Animals for Kids |
|
