The beautiful lionfish might look slow and serene as it floats around with a sombre expression, but don’t let its calm demeanour fool you. It is actually a fierce and skilful predator that hunts in teams using surprisingly sophisticated tactics, making it even more similar to its namesake than previously thought.

Scientists have repeatedly spotted teams of lionfish positioning themselves around schools of smaller fish and using their fan-like pectoral fins to corral their prey like fishermen with their nets. The pack then take turns to lunge at the prey and pick them off one by one. But more fascinating than the hunts themselves is the fact that they always begin when a one lionfish swims up to another and makes a special fin display with a specific message - “Let’s hunt.”

In a new study, scientists showed that a solitary lionfish would repeatedly leave tempting and helpless prey at one end of the testing area, and move to the other side to approach a second lionfish where it would make the distinctive fin displays. Working as a team, the pair would then capture almost twice as many fish than each of them would normally manage alone.

By deliberately moving away from something of major interest like prey in order to recruit a partner that’s out of sight, the lionfish show deliberate forward planning and an awareness of objects that they can’t see. Thus proving that their social behaviour is far more complex than we’d previously assumed.