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Venomous Fish Invading Atlantic Ocean

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May 4, 2006 3:09 pm US/Eastern

Venomous Fish Invading Atlantic Ocean

by Sara Underwood
BOSTON (CBS4) ― They have spines filled with venom that could make you sick if you touched them.

But that's not why this juvenille lionfish has aquarists concerned, the species has invaded the Atlantic ocean.

Brian Nelson, a Senior Aquarist at the New England Aquarium, says the lionfish have been seen in schools and successfully established a breeding population.

It's normally found in tropical waters near places like Australia and French Polynesia.

So why are they in the Atlantic and as far north as Long Island Sound?

"Either accidentally or intentionally releases. There's some documentation with all the hurricanes that blew through south Florida... some large private aquariums were knocked out," said Nelson.

"They're not an aggressive fish, they're probably gonna be just as afraid of you as you are of them, they're probably going to swim away," said Senior Aquarist, Joe Masi.

That's the good news, now the bad. Experts say the lionfish, which can grow to about sixteen inches, can be harmful to the Atlantic's environment.

Without any known predators, one thing's for sure. If there is nothing to eat these things, they're going to keep breeding and their populations are going to increase.

So what now?

Experts tells us they'll continue to observe the lionfish population and at some point possibly try and remove the species from the Atlantic ocean.

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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