Happy New Year! Here’s our first edition of the Friday Smorgi for 2017 and we’re hoping you enjoy reading along. We have a few interesting stories including an underwater drone for fishing, a cool new 3D ocean map, a unique…
Invasive soft coral threatens India’s reefs
The invasive snowflake coral (Carijoa riisei) is taking hold in the waters off the Indian coast and could be a significant threat to the marine ecology of the region. Teams from a Friends of Marine Life (FML), a local NGO,have recorded…
Brazilian Lionfish Discovered!
In their slow and steady march towards Atlantic reef dominance, the invasive lionfish Pterois volitans has at last crossed the final hurdle and been found in the reefs of Southeastern Brazil. To do so required it to traverse some inhospitable…
Nassau grouper caught on video stalking and devouring a lionfish
Lionfish in the waters of tropical atlantic and Caribbean habitats are a well documented and growing problem of an invasive species. The classic story about invasive species is that when they entire an exotic environment, predators are often not adapted…
Man catches world record lionfish…off coast of Alabama
Lionfish are a huge problem in the Gulf of Florida and Atlantic, and one man from Biloxi, Mississippi, found out just how big when he caught a world record 1-pound, 11.2-ounce lionfish off of Dauphin Island (off the Alabama coast). The previous…
Mimic lemon peel surgeonfish found off Florida coast
Another Indo-Pacific fish species has been recently discovered off the shores of Florida. Two women diving near West Palm Beach saw a fish they never saw before and had the inking it didn’t belong. They snapped photos and reported it…
Are Banggai cardinalfish endangered species or invasive species?
Earlier this week, the results of a 12-month finding by the National Marine Fisheries Service has concluded to propose the beloved Banggai cardinalfish as an endangered species. Together with three species of little-known stony corals, the Banggai cardinalfish, which is…
Lionfish Invasion: An Update on Successes
I still remember the first time I encountered an invasive lionfish. It was in the late spring of 2010 during a scuba dive on the North Wall of Grand Cayman. For those unfamiliar, the North Wall is where the coral…
Why You Should Never, Ever Release Marine Aquarium Livestock into the Wild
In a perfect world, every fish, invertebrate, or alga introduced to a marine aquarium would be allowed to live out its entire lifespan there. But as we all know, there are many contingencies that can make it necessary for hobbyists…
Some idiot planted Xenia on a Venezuelan reef to awful effect
We reefers have long considered Xenia species to be a particularly weedy species in our aquariums. There once was a time when any Xenia was worth its weight in gold but now you’d be lucky to get $10 a pound, and…
