Lionfish (Pterois volitans) can see UV light: UV Vision in an Invasive Aquatic Predator

Abstract

UV vision is wide-spread across animals. Many coral reef fish species use the reflection of UV light to communicate with conspecifics, as most aquatic predators are UV-blind. This creates a secret communication system for prey fish to signal to others while minimizing their risk of predation. Exploitation of this system by a predator that can see UV light would likely help facilitate prey detection and increase predator efficiency. Recently, indirect evidence has emerged that the Indo-Pacific lionfish (Pterois volitans), a highly invasive predator in the Caribbean, might be able to see into the UV spectrum. We propose that UV vision might be an important, and so far overlooked, reason for lionfishs predatory success. Using an associative learning assay, we investigated lionfishs ability to discriminate UV from non-UV light and found the first behavioral evidence that lionfish can indeed see UV light. We also measured the UV body reflectance of lionfish and found that lionfish reflect UV light, suggesting that lionfish may communicate with conspecifics via UV vision. Further studies should investigate if the UV vision is more widespread in marine predators than originally thought, as well as continue to investigate the function of UV vision in lionfish and other predators.

Limited effects of culling on the behavior of invasive lionfish (Pterois miles) in the Mediterranean

“…In our study, we show that multiple contacts with the same diver resulted in lionfish showing shorter burst distances through habituation learning (Figure 4). Learning is a widespread phenomenon among fishes (Brown, 2003), and lionfish in particular have been shown to possess the capacity for associative learning (de Groot, 2021; Phillips et al, 2022). Moreover, in another study, short‐term effects of culling were evident when several sites of major removal activities were revisited after 2–3 days, with lionfish behaving more warily when approached by divers and hiding surprisingly quickly even at a distance of 5 m from divers (Jimenez in prep.).…”