Native to the waters of the Indo-Pacific region, the 12 recognized species of lionfish all sport venomous spikes in their fin rays. Their wild coloration acts as a warning to predators: Eat at your own risk. But across the eastern seaboard of the United States, there’s a campaign encouraging humans to eat lionfish. Why? Because at some point in the 1990s, one or more species of lionfish was introduced to the waters of the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico. The invasive lionfish will eat nearly anything they can, and as a result, are decimating native fish populations. Would you eat a lionfish? (Properly prepared, of course.)
Lionfish off the coast of Indonesia
Today in History
More Desktop Wallpapers:
-
Pi Day
-
Giant kelp in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary
-
Indigenous living
-
Maldives
-
Cape Town at dusk
-
The globe skimmers return
-
Union Square, Manhattan
-
In Sicily, history is everywhere
-
The Grand Départ: Tour de France begins
-
The Sky Over Nine Columns in Venice, Italy
-
Gone ‘lightseeing’ in Berlin
-
Autumn in the cypress swamp
-
Corfe gets creepy
-
Four Sisters, thousands of trees
-
Celebrating Bike to Work Week, May 14-18
-
Salmon return to the Copper River
-
Whitehaven Beach, Whitsunday Island, Australia
-
Spotted owlet, Bangkok, Thailand
-
National Park Week: Yosemite National Park, California
-
Homeward bound
-
World Dolphin Day
-
Giving Tuesday
-
Pollinator Week
-
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the Louvre Pyramid
-
Paralympic Games begin in Paris
-
Ringing in the new year at Teotihuacan
-
Floating market, Kaptai Lake, Bangladesh
-
Río Negro, Amazon basin, Brazil
-
Storks ready for takeoff
-
Chestnut-headed bee-eaters, Bardia National Park, Nepal