The venomous striped catfish was spotted in Alanya for the first time

In Alanya, a school of striped catfish with venomous spines unique to the Red Sea was observed. This school has been recorded as an invasive species, detected for the first time in the Antalya Bay, with the footage captured by a diving instructor’s underwater camera. Professor Mehmet Gökoğlu from the Faculty of Fisheries at Mediterranean University stated, “We have confirmed that this fish has now entered the Antalya Bay.”

Kürşat Bilgin, a diving instructor with approximately 30 years of experience in Alanya, encountered a school of striped catfish (Plotosus lineatus) with venomous spines, which had never been seen before in the waters of the Antalya Bay, during a dive near the Pirates' Cave under the historic Alanya Castle. Bilgin recorded images of these fish living under a rock at a depth of about 13 meters with his underwater camera.