'Abnormally friendly’ Critters?

[ggunn]

pretty sure it has something to do with folks feeding Lionfish to them...

How is it that the groupers and morays can eat lionfish, even dead ones? Aren't the spines still just as dangerous after the lionfish is dead?

 

[supergaijin]

How can humans eat spicy as hell curries that would kill a fish?

Fish metabolism is much lower (cold-blooded); the toxins in lionfish etc. are a spicy meal, nothing more.

 

[BRT]

How is it that the groupers and morays can eat lionfish, even dead ones? Aren't the spines still just as dangerous after the lionfish is dead?

I wondered this too, but a fish diver I dove with who was incapacitated for 2 weeks by a lionfish sting and other times for shorter periods says that when they are dead it is just a little poke. I'm not going to test it but he believes when alive they inject venom and not so much when dead.

This fits in with other fish not hunting live lionfish and yet chasing divers around for dead ones.

Brian

 

[Pelagicsal]

When they are newly dead, the spines are just as toxic as ever.

Usually the animals swallow the lionfish head first, forcing the spines to lay flat against the body, not allowing piercing. However, when they just grab them off the spear any old way, I guess maybe the metabolic thing comes into play. Odd that they would develop a toxin ineffective for likely predators and SOOOO effective for mammals...
Fortunately yesterday, this 42 cm monster left all his venom with his fins on the sea floor. Excellent ceviche!

 

[citycountryguy]

Sallye, where did you get that one?

 

[Pelagicsal]

The ocean... :blinking:
Jijijiji!

 

[ggunn]

How can humans eat spicy as hell curries that would kill a fish?

Fish metabolism is much lower (cold-blooded); the toxins in lionfish etc. are a spicy meal, nothing more.

I'm not asking about their digestive ability; you can drink rattlesnake venom and it won't hurt you as long as you have no open sores in your mouth.

 

[Adam Grose]

Wow!!! AWESOME shot!!!!

A photo from my close encounter yesterday with a nurse shark. Yes, it was eyeball to eyeball with my camera housing.

View attachment 149454

 

[fishi]

How is it that the groupers and morays can eat lionfish, even dead ones? Aren't the spines still just as dangerous after the lionfish is dead?

After watching this video i've come to the conclusion that they're not a lot of fun to eat dead or alive.

[video=vimeo;54930639]http://vimeo.com/54930639[/video]

 

[Mike]

How is it that the groupers and morays can eat lionfish, even dead ones? Aren't the spines still just as dangerous after the lionfish is dead?

I'd have to logically assume that alive or dead the venom is potent since we are talking about a lion fish, if it's actually even dead has only been so for a few seconds at longest.

So the venom probably has little to do with a fish eating a lion fish. I've not ever witnessed anything showing any marine animal spitting out a lion fish being fed to it during the process of eating it because it got stuck by a spine in the process. Either the spines stick fish when they eat them and it doesn't bother them or they don't get stuck by them, but I think either way it's irrelevant.

I'd think what keeps marine life from eating live lionfish is the threatening posture of them while they are alive, once dead this posture is missing. Kind of like a live rattle snake versus a dead one, a coyote won't try to grab a live one as it has threatening posture that he recognizes, but a dead one he recognizes the posture is different and threat is no longer there any more and will eat it, venom sacks and all. That I believe is why a grouper or a moray will take a "dead" one being fed to it but leave a live one well alone.