Mrs Fab, Wendy, is a decent enough swimmer but isn't really confident when swimming in the sea out of her depth. However, we have a small beach just 15 minutes drive which has a nice little reef that I often snorkel over. Wendy is a bit happier if she has someone with her so I persuaded her to swim out over the reef with myself.
There are lots of pretty fish there and I have spotted lots of interesting stuff there before, spotted boxfish, cuttlefish, razor fish, etc. but I had never seen a lionfish there.
So as you can imagine Wendy was dead chuffed to have spotted a lionfish and point it out to me
Lionfish, like scorpionfish and stonefish, are extremely venomous and you certainly wouldn't want to get spiked by one. On the other hand, they are a very beautiful and interesting fish.
We often see them diving here in Thailand, where they are native to the whole of Asia Pacific area but the have been accidentally introduced to the Caribbean, where because they have no natural predators, they have become a real menace. I understand that divers there can get a license to collect as many as they can (carefully, I would imagine) and sell them to restaurants as apparently they are quite tasty when cooked.
Image courtesy Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterois" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;