Dying Lion Fish ?

[scubafanatic]

That would be even better! But the lionfish has no natural predator here. That’s the problem.

This new apparent 'disease' could be considered a predator.

 

[Snoweman]

I'm not a marine biologist, just a scientist and a fisherman....

But... did you sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night?

 

[CT-Rich]

I vote for ulceration. If there was a predator that left a nasty wound like that on a significant percentage of the population, you would know it. The big question on an infection is how species specific is it?

If it affects only lion fish, good riddance. But it could affect more species, but large number of lion fish have made it more noticeable on them. Worse would them being caused by pollution.

 

[Snoweman]

I'm not an ichthyologist, but I was thinking about sleeping in a Holiday Inn.

If it were predation, it needs to start somewhere, someplace. I'm betting eels are learning how to attack. There's a great National Geographic video of a wormlike creature taking down a big lionfish in its native habitat. This creature learned how to take it down over time. Others will, too. My only disappointment will be less lionfish on the table.

 

[scubafanatic]

I'm not an ichthyologist, but I was thinking about sleeping in a Holiday Inn.

If it were predation, it needs to start somewhere, someplace. I'm betting eels are learning how to attack. There's a great National Geographic video of a wormlike creature taking down a big lionfish in its native habitat. This creature learned how to take it down over time. Others will, too. My only disappointment will be less lionfish on the table.

That's a disease killing those Lionfish, it's not a bite. I'm hoping it's just as effective against Lionfish as the diseases that wiped out the Black Sea Urchins back in the 80's/90's, and more recently, the disease that has wiped out many starfish populations/species off the US Pacific coast.