Should you eat invasive species? Lionfish ceviche is surprisingly tasty. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. "By definition, invasive species are harmful in some regard," says Jacob Barney, a professor of invasive plant ecology at Virginia Tech University. So when we eat them, he adds, "we turn that harm into something positive."

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Fine artist Laura Shape uses quite an unexpected medium in her visual artwork. It lends striking patterns to her abstract canvases, while helping restore rivers, reefs, and wetlands. Shape uses the leather of invasive species--specifically lionfish, carp, and Burmese pythons. "I use those materials to make vibrant, textured, abstract acrylic pieces," she tells Popular Science via video call.

Lionfish are voracious eaters and can expand their stomachs 30 times their original volume to accommodate that appetite. One of the most notorious invasive species around, the lionfish, is known for its voracious appetite and can literally eat its competitors out of an ecosystem. And that's what the striking fish is doing, feasting its way through waters that stretch from the Gulf of Mexico to the Eastern Seaboard. Now, scientists and startups are crafting methods for capturing and killing the hungry invaders. But while these new ideas show promise, tried-and-true spearfishing seems to be the most effective way to eradicate lionfish, scientists told Live Science. "It's actually hard to describe how a lionfish eats because they do it in a split second," said Kristen Dahl, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida.

It's always cool to see lionfish while snorkeling or scuba diving. They're spectacular-looking, and because they're covered in flamboyant spines, they're usually secure enough in their invincibility that they'll mostly just sit there and let you get close to them. Lionfish don't make for very good oceanic neighbors, though, and in places where they're an invasive species and have few native predators (like most of the Atlantic coast of the United States), they do their best to eat anything that moves while breeding almost continuously. A single lionfish per reef reduced young juvenile fish populations by 79 percent in only a five-week period. Many species were affected, including cardinalfish, parrotfish, damselfish, and others.

Scientists have developed a spear-wielding submersible robot to hunt invasive lionfish in the western Atlantic Ocean. The fish have become a major problem in the waters off the coastal US and Caribbean islands; originally from the South Pacific and Indian oceans, lionfish have no natural predators in the area and are now out-competing native species. Researchers are now hoping an autonomous robot can help solve the problem by weeding out the lionfish and harvesting them without causing further damage to struggling coral reefs. Scientists have developed a spear-wielding submersible robot to hunt invasive lionfish in the western Atlantic Ocean. 'There are economic and environmental benefits to this, and the fish are delicious,' says Brandon Kelly, an undergraduate student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute who developed the robot's computer vision system.

Yuan Wang, co-founder of American Marine Research Company, details the progress his company is making in developing automated drones to identify and catch lionfish. An engineer at American Marine Research Company works on a drone on Thursday, June 29, 2017. The company is designing robots to autonomously detect and collect lionfish. PENSACOLA, Fla. -- There's a potential game changer brewing in the struggle to eradicate lionfish from the Gulf of Mexico. A quartet of engineers is developing drones to autonomously detect and collect lionfish at depths beyond the scope of human divers.

This 3D rendering of a lionfish harvester robot was developed by Robotics in Service of the Environment (RISE). The prototype uses a robot arm with two metal electrodes on the end to electrocute invasive lionfish, which are then collected in a central chamber for use as food. The America's Cup sailing race kicked off this week in Bermuda, but a month ago, a different type of competition was held in the island's lucid waters. It was a contest that pitted chef against chef and robot against beast. Last August, NewsHour broke the story of a robot being developed to stop lionfish, an invasive species that has decimated Atlantic coral reef ecosystems due to their insatiable appetites for other fish.

Researchers have discovered that the lionfish, a predator with venomous spines, has invaded Caribbean coral reefs and is eating native species. Ember gobies school together in massed of about 100 fish - starkly different behavior from most gobies that hide alone in holes or cracks in the reef, making the new species an easy target for lionfish attacks. Ember gobies school together in massed of about 100 fish - starkly different behavior from most gobies that hide alone in holes or cracks in the reef, making the new species an easy target for lionfish attacks. They've gone on about 150 dives to Caribbean reefs using a 6.5-ton submarine with two robotic arms that stun fish for capturing by spraying them with water or an anesthetic, collecting them using a vacuum hose.

A helicopter pelts Guam's trees with poison-baited dead mice to fight the voracious brown tree snake. A special boat with giant winglike nets stuns and catches Asian carp in the U.S. Midwest. In the fight against alien animals that invade and overrun native species, the weird and wired wins. "Critters are smart -- they survive," said biologist Rob "Goose" Gosnell, head of U.S. Department of Agriculture's wildlife services in Guam, where brown tree snakes have gobbled up nearly all the native birds. "Trying to outsmart them is hard to do." Invasive species are plants and animals that thrive in areas where they don't naturally live, usually brought there by humans, either accidentally or intentionally.

Maria and Bob Hickerson saw their first lionfish on a diving trip in Jamaica in 2009. When they spotted it, they hurried over before this unfamiliar specimen could swim away. But instead, the fish seemed to pause. They took photos and told the dive operator about the fish. He asked for details about where they spotted it.