[Coral-List] Butterfly fish and Lion fish

[Belize TREC]

Where have all the mates gone?

If you spend much time at the Belize reef you may have noticed changes in the fish populations. There are many. A particularly interesting one may be a way of measuring the impact of Lion Fish. Butterfly fish live their adult life in mated pairs. When you see a mature butterfly fish alone you know it is a widow or widower. You can’t tell the sex by looking at them. Generally, in the past, on an hour long snorkel you may see one solitary butterfly fish if you are lucky and he (or she) wasn’t. Now when I snorkel the reef I see 5 or more in one hour. The reason immediately appeared obvious to me. When a lion fish eats a reef fish it is gone and unless someone actually saw it being eaten no one knows it is gone. But with butterfly fish you know it is gone. The question becomes, what happened to it? Lion fish are ambush predators. They take their prey by surprise so rarely do they get two fish that are near each other. They swallow one and others get away. The evidence of overall lion fish consumption may be in the huge increase in missing butterfly fish mates.
Dr. Ken Mattes
Belize TREC


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