The image shown is a representative illustration and does not depict every individual animal in this category.
Total number of species approx.: 30
The stonefish is the world’s most venomous fish and is closely related to the scorpionfish. This hard-to-see marine fish sits motionless and extremely well camouflaged on the sea floor’s coral and rocky reefs. Their coloration perfectly matches the substrate on which they live. Be careful not to accidentally swim into one, as the stonefish carries enough venom in one dorsal fin spine to kill an adult person in less than an hour. As a sedentary creature, the stonefish does not use this venom to capture prey but to avoid being preyed upon.
There are five species of stonefish, all living in the coastal region of the Indo-Pacific, from Africa to the Red Sea, including Japan and Australia. Stonefish are famous for their lightning-fast hunting tactics. As ambush predators, they sit completely still and wait for their prey to swim right overhead, snagging it and swallowing it whole in as little as 0.015 seconds. To see where you can go diving with stonefish, explore the dive site map below.
