At first glance the stonefish doesn’t look like a speedster. They’re bulky and just sit there like a… stone. Well their body does anyway. Their mouth is another story. It’s designed to move independently of the rest of the body, which is all a part of its plan.
Due to its awesome camouflage and tendency to sit statue still, fish don’t see the stonefish when they swim past until it’s too late. What looks like a harmless rock or a cluster of marine algae can turn into a gaping mouth that comes out of nowhere and sucks them in whole.
It happens in the blink of an eye, in a case of now you see me, now you don’t. The entire process taking only 15 milliseconds and there’s no time for chewing. And boy is their mouth big. It opens to 5 times its volume, allowing it to eat fish roughly a 1/3 of their own body size, which is impressive in anyone’s books.
How impressive? If you scaled the stonefish up to the size of an average adult, they would be able to eat a small child in one gulp, although we don’t recommend you try this at home.
So if the fish get’s swallowed whole is there any chance it can escape? Afraid not. A series of recurved teeth (teeth pointed down and backward) inside their mouth and along their pharynx force forces prey backwards and into the stomach, ultimately to their doom
