Yawning- just bored or something else?

[supergaijin]

I've seen scorpionfish, lionfish and frogfish yawn- as if swallowing prey. Does anyone know why they do this? I've had a look on Google but haven't found any decent articles on it.


This wee guy was yawning every few minutes and I have a feeling it was a reaction to stress. I was getting the camera pretty close to it at times. A couple of times it swam lazily towards me and up my chest which was a little worrying TBH as I'm not sure how much pressure is required to release the toxin from its spines.... and I'm not exactly keen to find out.

Scorpionfish can be made to yawn by shining a torch at them and rapidly moving it up and down. I haven't made one yawn just by getting close to it.

I've had frogfish yawn in front of my video camera- again possibly due to stress.

Any experts out there can comment?

 

[scuba.mne]

They are bored, thinking oooooo gosh agai those humans

sent from inner peace

 

[archman]

Sometimes fish flare their mouths out for courtship and threat displays. I will presume that in your case, it was not the former. Ha ha.