On Fri, 30 Mar 2001 Andy Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote in response to
having a squiz at Giovanni's newest web page efforts:

>Nice page, and not a computer in sight :-)
>Lion fish are such fascinating creatures, especially as you can get
>really close to them. But they are most interesting on a night dive
>when they come out in the open - simply herding a small fish towards
>it and shining your torch down on top of the prey results in a
>spectacular feeding display :-)
>Andy Johnson

AJ! (in Mother Superior tone) You bad, bad boy ;-)  Oh, sorry Ive got the
wrong cloak on today ... ahem ... Im the cruelty to animals Inspector :-)

Yes, I had to have a little chuckle as I myself have unintentionally aided
a lionfish feeding frenzy... but this one had an unusual ending.

Was night diving off Milne Bay in the popular muckdiving area and found
myself being stalked by all the lionfish there. Everytime I settled down to
take a nice fish pic they would zoom in to check out what I was
photographing... so I lost many choice subjects as they zoomed off in to
the darkness like a bat-out-of-hell with lionfish in hot pursuit.

I found a medium sized fish that was asleep so an easy topic to photograph.
I was positioning my two strobes around it to lessen the shadows when GULP
the fish was snatched up by one of the larger lionfish. A few seconds later
the lionfish when berserk & spat it out. I, having only seen this stalk &
grab to eat process by a lionfish for the first time, couldnt understand
why the lionfish rejected a good sized meal.. fresh too yummy .. would have
made an excellent nibble deep fried in beer batter with chips :-) As I was
solo diving I cut the dive short a little later when the lionfish became
too pesky. Being lit up like a christmas tree so the lookout on our
liveaboard could track me up and down the bay I guess every damn lionfish
was following me around that night because I ended up having to use one of
my strobes to push the lionfish away. I was worried I might connect with
them in the worst possible way so flicked off my torches & strobes and
finned back to our boat.


When I reboarded our liveaboard (MV Chertan) I queried all the other
divers, who had opted out of the night dive to have after dinner drinkies
instead, whether they had seen a lionfish spit out a fish before. None had
seen a lionfish feeding at night let alone seen one spit out its dinner. I
found out from the Captain of our vessel, Rob Van der Loos, that the fish
that was on the menu had flicked its sharp dorsal fins up in defence. The
lionfish, on feeling that, didnt want his throat damaged .. or worse the
fish stuck permanently there .. so it spat it out. When I had my slides
processed back in Perth my sequence of the lionfish gulp, try to swallow &
eject like a rocket set turned out so-so. Atleast I could tell what was
going on amongst all the sand particles that had been stirred up in that
snatch & grab scene.
Viv