A juvenile lionfish, which is native to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, was found by divers recently off the coast of the Bahamas, a sign that the venomous fish may now be breeding in the Atlantic Ocean, according to a spokesman from the New England Aquarium.<\/P><\/p>\n
Lionfish have no natural predators in the Atlantic Ocean, and recent data show that lionfish are reaching sexual maturity at a younger age, said Tony LaCasse, a spokesman for the aquarium, so the fish could begin to proliferate in these waters.<\/P><\/p>\n
”[The discovery of a juvenile] is an indicator that they’re reproducing,” LaCasse said. ”Most of the specimens that have been seen in the wild have been adults.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Although the lionfish does not aggressively threaten humans, if a person came in contact with one, the venom it secretes from spinal glands is painful and can be fatal on rare occasions, LaCasse said.<\/P><\/p>\n
The juvenile lionfish, found by divers from the New England Aquarium on an expedition, measures less than 4 inches long and will be on display at the aquarium, along with four adult lionfish that the aquarium previously owned.<\/P><\/p>\n
By: Elizabeth A. Raftery, The Boston Globe<\/small><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A sign that the venomous fish may now be breeding in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}