Wildlife

Spiny Invasion

Warming surface waters of the Mediterranean are luring invasive lionfish to a body of water where their presence could cause serious ecological and socioeconomic damage.

Researchers from Britain’s University of Plymouth say they found that, within a year of their first appearance, the poisonous predators colonized the waters around southeastern Cyprus.

While the bizarre spined species is native to the Indo-Pacific, it has spread widely across the western Atlantic and Caribbean in recent years.

It was earlier thought the Mediterranean would be too inhospitable for such an invasion. But climate change and a widening and deepening of the Suez Canal may mean that the lionfish now swimming around Cyprus are the vanguards of a much wider invasion, in a sea where fishing has supported civilizations for thousands of years.