LATEST
NEWS:
1 March
2017
John
Coe from the West
Coast Community
of Killer Whales,
Orcinus
orca, was spotted off the coast of the Isle
of Mull, Scotland.
24
February 2017
A
Humpback
Whale, Megaptera novaeangliae,
from a breeding population in the eastern Caribbean sea has been recorded
for the very first time in British waters off the Shetland
Isles. Experts can recognise individual whales from pigments and markings
on their signatory tail flukes.
Humpback
Whales swim north to feed in colder seas during
the winter.
MERS
Humpback Whale Research
BMLSS
Cetacea
Late
February 2017
Crocodile
Shark
An
extraordinary find of a small shark
with sharp spiny teeth was washed ashore dead at Hope
Cove, south Devon, south-east of Plymouth. The discovery on the sand
and rock beach by Steven Greenfields,
puzzled the experts at first as it was not on the list of sharks ever discovered
in British seas before. However, it had some rather distinctive features
including a white patch forward of its long gill slits, and with its distinctive
teeth and shape of the caudal fin, there could really be no doubt it was
the first ever British record of the Crocodile
Shark, Pseudocarcharias
kamoharai.
This
shark
is an inhabitant of much warmer tropical seas, oceanic over deep waters
to depths of 590 metres, rising to 200 meters or less at night, and in
all tropical oceans but not a common species and classified as Near
Threatened on
the IUCN List.
It's nearest natural habitat is the Canary
Islands region.
Shark
Trust
BMLSS
Sharks
National
Marine Aquarium
Oceanic
Sharks on the IUCN Red List
Late
January 2017
A
few Slipper Lobsters,
Scyllarus
arctus, have been discovered notably
one trawled up in a net full of Spurdogs
and prawns off the Aran
Islands, west coast of Ireland. It was small specimen and it is being
kept in Galway
Atlantaquaria.
This
crustacean (it looks a bit like a compressed Lobster) has two shrimp (Crangon)-like
pincers and a carapace probably as wide as a Lobsters', but it is
still less than half the length (excluding the long claws of a Lobster).
The Slipper Lobster
is a scarce southern species found in the Mediterranean
Sea. It is classified in the Infraorder Palinura:
see
taxonomy notes. Records are few and far between only thirteen or so
up to the turn of the century but now over fifty reports.
Previous
Report
BMLSS
Slipper Lobsters
British
Marine Life News 2012
BMLSS
Oil Disasters page
