it is lucky there are only two species of lionfish in the Caribbean/Atlantic

In Indonesia there are many different kinds of lionfish swimming about and eating baby fish. They have the standard P. volitans lionfish but they also have many others like the dwarf lionfish from the Dendrochyrus genus; the two spot lionfish, the dwarf fuzzy lionfish and the zebra lionfish. These little guys like to hide in every nook and cranny on the reef so they are difficult to see unlike the P. volitans and P. miles lionfish that float about next to the reef and are easy to see. It must be pretty difficult for small fish to survive in the Indopacific because they have around 17 different t species of lionfish trying to eat them. The Caribbean only has two and they are having a terrible time.

In the IndoPacific there are predators that evolved along with all these lionfish and they control their populations. Quite different from the case of the lionfish in the Caribbean where there was no co-evolution of predators to control them.

I've also read that Caribbean prey species don't seem to recognize them. Perhaps the Indonesian prey species do better at evading them?

Richard.

I was not really talking so much about evolution and what not just that the fish in the Indopacific must be totally paranoid compared to the ones in the Caribbean. I mean there are leaf fish that are poisonous just like the lionfish and eat small fish, there are frogfish that are virtually invisible and all sorts of fish that seem to disappear into the environment. I would imagine a fish from the Indopacific placed into the Caribbean would feel very safe indeed compared to where they are from.

I doubt fish feel paranoia... only humans. One must consider evolution in the case of native vs exotic species. Co-evolution in predator-prey species pairs is a key factor in developing defense strategies