Sometime in the 1990s, two different species of lionfish made it into the waters of the Atlantic off Florida. Native to the Indo-Pacific, the venomous, predatory fish spread rapidly, decimating local reef fish in the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. Lacking local predators to stop its spreading, the lionfish have been described as “one of the most aggressively invasive species on the planet“. So far, the most effective means of slowing the spread of the fish is for divers to spear them, a relatively slow and challenging approach.

I recently came across a video from 2015, showing a grouper eating a lionfish. Groupers and sharks are natural predators for the lionfish in the Pacific, but the Atlantic and Caribbean groupers have been slow to adapt to considering the new invader as a food source. Are local groupers and other predators developing a taste for lionfish? About the video:

On location with Lionfish University in Little Cayman on February 1st, 2015 at Black Hole, Preston Bay Marine Park, the following video was filmed by JV Hart (Lionfish University co-founder) this grouper took a lionfish to lunch… and ate it.

The following video is uninterrupted, continuous coverage of an encounter between a Nassau Grouper and a lionfish with no interference, other than that of a diver being present with a camera, and, may be the first photo documentation of a grouper making an open water kill of an invasive lionfish without encouragement of any kind by a diver. 

There is controversy among experts who have viewed the video as to whether the grouper herded the lionfish into open water for the kill, or whether it followed the lionfish.

Please advise at LionfishUniversity@gmail.com of any recorded or observed similar interactions between grouper/sharks/snapper/eels and lionfish, and where they occurred.

Lionfish VERSUS Grouper 

Lionfish University is a non-profit dedicated to raising awareness and reducing the damage caused by the invasive lionfish.