Fogg et al.: Age and growth of invasive Pterois volitans in the northern Gulf of Mexico 
133 
Age (years) 
Figure 6 
The von Bertalanffy growth curves and associated equations for (A) female and (B) male 
red lionfish (Pterois volitans) as well as for (C) sexes pooled. Also plotted are observed 
lengths at age, by the 3 ecological regions (ecoregions) where red lionfish were collected 
from 2012 through 2015 in the northern Gulf of Mexico: southeast (Florida Keys north 
to Anclote Keys, Florida), northeast (Anclote Keys north to Mobile Bay, Alabama), and 
central (west of Mobile Bay to Galveston Bay, Texas). 
otoliths from fish from all ecoregions pooled. This value 
is similar to the APE of 7 reported for analysis of otoliths 
from fish collected off northeast Florida (Johnson and 
Swenarton et al., 2016). However, all of our APE values 
are low compared with those of Edwards et al. (2014), 
who reported an APE of 58 between readers for lionfish 
collected in the Caribbean Sea. Differences in regional 
age determination may be expected because annuli in 
lionfish collected in tropical waters are likely to be more 
difficult to distinguish than annuli in lionfish living in 
more temperate regions. Lionfish in tropical waters 
likely have relatively consistent growth because of min¬ 
imal variation in water temperatures, and fish in tem¬ 
perate waters experience periods of slow and fast growth 
(Pitcher and Hart, 1982). 
The age of red lionfish from the northern GOM ranged 
from 0 to 4.5 years (x=1.35), ages that are markedly lower 
than the maximum reported age of 30-33 years for a spec¬ 
imen held in an aquarium (Potts et al., 2010). Interest¬ 
ingly, the oldest age estimated in this study was 4.5 years 
