U.s. Invaded?

[madmom]

I was watching the early morning news this morning and heard Lionfish be soon be found on the U.S. Coast. I found two articles on it. Weird.

http/findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQ...2_7/ai_84029121

http/www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/jun/19/dea...florida-waters/

 

[TylerFerretLord]

I laughed at the 'deadly' part. Everything I've read says their sting is comparable to a nasty bee sting, and the venom is destroyed by heat so it's not that hard to treat; Rinse the area with hot water. They don't actively go after people either.

Anyway, exotic species in an environment is a bad thing.

 

[Colin_T]

The venom from a lionfish is protein based and does break down with heat. The only time you have to worry about dieing is if you get stung around the neck or chest area. Then the inflammation can restrict the airways and cause you to suffocate.
Most people get stung on the hand or finger when they are reaching around rocks in a tank. The lionfish just sits there and the person stabs themself. If you immerse the stung part in warm to hot water the pain goes very quickly. Keep the stung area in hot water for at least 30 minutes and then go to the local doctors for a quick tetanus shot and to make sure there is no bits of spine in the finger/hand.
Quite often there is no problem but secondary infections can occur so you need to wash the area well and keep an eye on it over the next few days.

If lionfish do make it to the US then their price should come down

 

[Dorkhedeos]

I hope some of the lions are the pure black volitans

 

[schooly20]

It was on the news tonight as well. The U.S. is actually already invaded. Lion fish are from the pacific ocean but have made it in to the atlantic and are "infesting" the eastern coast. Apparently they are eating everything they can fit in their mouths and destroying the reefs. They actually showed footage of divers catching hundreds of lion fish as to "eradicate" the infestation. Surprisingly enough all the lion fish in the atlantic ocean are descendants of only 6 different fish. Fish they suspect that made it into the ocean when some hurricanes destroyed some homes in florida that had aquariums that housed lion fish. Crazy to me that they survived but apparently they have no predators so they beginning to overrun the coast. They are found from cuba all the way up to massachusetts.