Location Data: FIJI ISLANDS - TAVAUNI ISLAND RESORT Photograph Details: Juvenile Lion fish-------------------- I have been stung twice by Lionfish, a most painful experience one I will do my best not to repeat. It is something akin to someone heating a needle red hot and sticking it in your arm. The sting is extremely painful and throbs for about six hours before starting to subside. The Fijians call them fire fish for very good reasons. On the lion fish all the spines sting not just a single dorsal spine as with scorpion or stonefish. The lionfish has numerous stinging spines on all fins, dorsal, pectoral and tail. They are swimming pincushion porcupines. Size is of no consequence, lionfish the size of your thumb are every bit as potent as the full grown ones. I shot this one around a log settled on a sandy bottom that was covered with dozens of baby lionfish. As I was shooting with one eye I had to keep my other eye pealed for the location of the rest of them so I did not bump into one. The lion fish in this image is barely one inch long, there must have been twenty of them all over this log, it was quite a job keeping track of them all. Full-grown Lionfish swim about the reef with impunity flexing and flashing their fins with full knowledge nothing is going to mess with them. They are voracious hunters and will gobble up anything that will fit in their mouths. Like the grouper they can distend their jaw to a diameter larger than their bodies to envelope their prey. The adults can also be very aggressive, I have at times found myself backing away from a group of two or three as they boldly swim right up to me to chase me out of their territory.