Poisonous lionfish is spreading in the Mediterranean: Sting can cause severe pain. The lionfish (Pterois volitans) originally comes from the Indian Ocean.
It probably got here via the Suez Canal, where it hardly encounters natural predators and displaces native species. It has now spread particularly in the Adriatic - where it was spotted for the first time in 2019. Without natural enemies, the lionfish would eat up to 79 percent of the young fish on a reef in less than five weeks.