--- title: "Red Lionfish (Pterois volitans) | AnimalTracks.wiki" description: "Swims at half its prey's speed and still wins six lab chases in ten." image: "https://animaltracks.wiki/images/animals/red-lionfish-1.webp" published: "2026-10-11" updated: "2026-10-11" --- # Red Lionfish (*Pterois volitans*) > **Status**: Checked against 6 sources, listed under Sources below. > **Tagline**: Swims at half its prey's speed and still wins six lab chases in ten. > **Soundtrack Vibe**: Art Punk & Experimental Post-Punk // Electrelane, "To the East" > **Soundtrack Links**: [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/1bzQEsGH0KEMLt9ZlJ3vmk) > **Vibe Match**: In lab chases the red lionfish caught faster prey partly by keeping on the move: it kept heading for the target without a break while the prey sped up and slowed down. Electrelane's To the East holds one steady driving beat from start to finish while everything above it shifts. ## Biological Superpowers & Stats - **Taxonomy**: *Pterois volitans* - **Danger Level**: Medium - **Conservation Status**: Least Concern ([IUCN Red List](https://doi.org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2016-3.rlts.t190468a78940195.en)) - **Superpower**: The persistent-predation strategy: it chased a faster fish at about half its speed and caught it in 61% of lab trials. - **Habitat**: Indo-Pacific reefs, 2 to 55 m deep; invasive in the western Atlantic - **Diet**: Small fishes, shrimps and crabs - **Tags**: fish, ocean, coral-reef, venomous, invasive, predator ## Natural History & Behavior ## Slower than its dinner, and it wins anyway Biologists were unsure how a predator in plain sight could catch prey faster than itself. In a laboratory study, red lionfish chased a faster prey fish, *Chromis viridis*, while swimming about half as fast, and still captured it in 61% of experiments. Part of the trick is steady motion. The lionfish kept heading for where the prey was, not where it was going, and kept moving without a break. The prey swam in fits and starts, slowing down at times, and those slow spells let the lionfish close in. Once it was less than 9 cm away it fired a suction-feeding strike, and 74% of those strikes worked. The researchers named the trick the persistent-predation strategy. Out on the reef it also uses its wide pectoral fins to trap prey in a corner, then swallows it in one sweep. It eats small fishes, shrimps and crabs. ## A pin cushion with a stripe job The red lionfish varies a lot in appearance, but it is basically zebra-banded in red and white, and NOAA says lionfish rely on their unusual colours and fins to put off predators. It carries 13 dorsal spines, and venom glands sit at the base of certain fin spines. A stab from one can inject the toxins, and the venom is known to cause a severe reaction in humans. > **Venom delivery** > Spines on the dorsal, anal and pelvic fins can deliver the venom. The maximum published length is 45.7 cm total length (snout to the tip of the tail), the maximum published weight is 1.4 kg, and the maximum reported age is 10 years. ## From Pacific reefs to the Atlantic Its home range runs from Western Australia and the Cocos-Keeling Islands east to the Marquesas, and north to southern Japan and southern Korea. It lives on reefs from 2 to 55 m deep. By day it hides in unexposed spots, often head down and almost motionless, and it hunts at night. NOAA says lionfish, popular aquarium fish, were possibly released into the Atlantic on purpose, and they were first reported off southeast Florida in the 1980s. Two Indo-Pacific lionfish, *P. volitans* and *P. miles*, have spread across the western Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic figures here cover both. On nine Bahamas reefs, as lionfish multiplied, the fish species they ate lost 65% of their combined biomass in two years. NOAA adds that a mature female lionfish sheds about two million eggs each year. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How big does a red lionfish get? FishBase lists a maximum of 45.7 cm total length and a maximum published weight of 1.4 kg. Those are maximum records. *(Source: [FishBase]())* ### How long do red lionfish live? The maximum age FishBase reports is 10 years. *(Source: [FishBase]())* ### How does a slow fish catch fast prey? In lab tests it kept swimming toward its prey without a break, while the prey's speed rose and fell. When a slow spell brought it within 9 cm, it struck, and about three strikes in four succeeded. *(Source: [Peterson & McHenry 2022]())* ### What did lionfish do to Atlantic reef fish? Green and colleagues surveyed nine coral reefs off New Providence Island in the Bahamas. Between 2008 and 2010, while lionfish numbers rose, the combined biomass of the 42 fish species lionfish ate there fell by 65% on average. *(Source: [Green et al. 2012]())* ## Sources 1. [Motomura & Matsuura (2016). Pterois volitans. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T190468A78940195.]() 2. [Peterson & McHenry (2022). The persistent-predation strategy of the red lionfish ( Pterois volitans ). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.]() 3. [Green et al. (2012). Invasive Lionfish Drive Atlantic Coral Reef Fish Declines. PLoS ONE.]() 4. [Pterois volitans summary page. FishBase.]() 5. [Red Lionfish (Pterois volitans). Florida Museum of Natural History, Discover Fishes.]() 6. [What is a lionfish? NOAA National Ocean Service.]() *Published October 11, 2026. 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