Other sea life eating lion fish. How?

[Dolbie]

Here's a (probably) basic biology question that a moderate amount of Google searches couldn't answer.
How is it that a Nurse Shark is able to eat the venomous Lionfish?

 

[Wookie]

Maybe the venom is only venomous to mammals and not to other fish?

 

[Diogenesdemar]

If I remember my biology correctly, the reason that so many cold-blooded animals -- especially small cold-blooded animals -- have such highly toxic venom is because they are primarily prey for, or preying on, other cold-blooded animals. They have developed their high degree of toxicity as an evolutionary defense response to protect themselves or stun their slow-metabolism, cold-blooded attackers/victims. It takes a much larger venom "jolt" to put off or impact a large cold-blooded animal with a slow metabolism, than a warm-blooded human being with a comparatively high metabolism. The lionfish envenomation that can do such harm to a human being, is probably somewhat more akin to a bee sting for a nurse shark.

 

[Damselfish]

Something eats them in their native range...

 

[supergaijin]

Good question and I reckon Diogensnefnsdsnfefjdgndder's answer (#4) sounds about right.

 

[Superlyte27]

Grouper and Jew Fish eat them all the time. I wish more Grouper and Jew Fish would figure out that they like to eat Lion Fish

 

[smellzlikefish]

I read a paper once (can't recall the title or authors offhand-sorry) that counted the numbers of stingray barbs embedded in the facial areas of fish like groupers and hammerheads. The evidence clearly showed that these animals take a lot of hits in the name of hunger. Even disregarding the venom for a second, the physical damage from such stab-wounds seems to suggest that these large predators are designed to take a pretty good beating from unruly prey items. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they also have adaptations like reduced numbers of pain receptors in their mouth areas to combat venomous foes.

 

[boulderjohn]

I was recently in Cozumel and on several dives I watched the DM capture some lionfish. Each time he started to make the capture, some nearby fish, especially grouper, would start hanging around, watching expectantly. after making the catch, he took out scissors and cut off the spines before feeding them to the fish. I saw some fish seemingly inhale the body of a lion fish almost as big as they were that way.

On the other hand, a couple of times he released the dead lion fish without taking off the spines. When he did that, the fish that ate them were much more careful. They took bites off the head first, almost as if they were trying to artfully bite between the area of the spines. I never saw one eat the whole lion fish with the spines in one bite the way they did when the spines were removed. Now, these were not anything as big as a nurse shark, so I don't know how they do it.

 

[Damselfish]

I've seen lionfish speared and fed directly to reef sharks. The sharks seemed perfectly happy to inhale the whole fish spines and all.