Irish Sea Forum
Seminar 21:  Marine Archaeology of the Irish sea

at The Senate Room, University of Liverpool

Tel:  0151 794 4089
Fax:  0151 794 4099
EMail: H.Davies@liverpool.ac.uk

Please book in advance

Integrated Coastal Management Information & Management
Contact:  Dr Bob Earll, CMS Ltd.   Tel:  01531 890415

20/21 January 1999  (Wednesday, Thursday)

Coastal Management & Sustainability Conference
Review of 1998 & Future Trends

University of London, Russell Square, London.
Further Details:  Tel/Fax:  01531 890415
Advance registration = £90
 

Wembury Bay  Rockpool Rambles
Contact  Wembury Marine Centre  Tel:  01752 862538

Leaflet from Devon Wildlife Trust  Tel:  01392 279244.

MARINE WILDLIFE NEWS

•  
• 
•  
• A dead Leatherback Turtle, Dermochelys coriacea, was washed into Fowey Harbour, Cornwall. It was about 2 metres long.  (Report by Jon Makeham).
•  
• October 1998
• A Blackfish, Centrolophus niger, was caught from East Yorkshire's Aldbrough beach by Simon Ostler, from Beverley East Yorkshire. It weighed 2.8 kg (6 lb 2 oz). The last reported specimen caught  was 10 years ago, when a smaller fish was caught  from Lincolnshire's Moggs's Eye beach. (Len Nevell, Sea Angling Reports). 
• This fish usually inhabits water of over 100 metres deep, and the North Sea is shallower, although a trench called the Silver Pit of this depth occurs off the Wash. 
• The Cornish Blackfish, Schedophilus medusophagus, is very similar in appearance to the Common Blackfish. 
•  
• 29 October 1998
• A massive 340 kg (750 lb) Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus, was captured on a Mackerel long-line off Plymouth.  (Corrected Report by Doug Herdson). The Bluefin Tunny, is usually the only large species of tunny found in British seas, although it is very scarce nowadays.The original report was of a Yellowfin Tuna, Thunnus albacares, but this is now corrected. Yellow-fin are found in the Caribbean Sea.  This tunny is such a rare vagrant that it up to1978, there was only one record of a dead fish from off SW Wales in 1972. 

Plymouth:  National Aquarium        Link to Official Site


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September 1998

Blue Spiny Spider Crab, Maja squinado, crab caught off Jersey. It's now living happily in a friend's aquarium. It's 95 mm across the carapace and is a habitat in it's own right with two species of anemone, sea mat, at least two species of sponges as well as the barnacles living on it's carapace. The size of the barnacles seem to indicate that it hasn't shed it's shell for some time. Another oddity is that it has both male and female characteristics and is what local fishermen charmingly refer to as a 'puffter'!

This crab is usually orange-brown all over. Spider Crab Mounds. 
 



A bright blue specimen of the Velvet Swimming Crab, Necora puber, was collected by a diver at Thatcher's Rock, Torbay, Devon in the spring of 1998. Also a bright red specimen of this swimming crab was collected by Jon Makeham from the shore at Looe in October 1998. 

We also had another Seahorse bought up on a lobster pot - the usual species Hippocampus hippocampus but this time a male. He has gone to the Seahorse Centre now at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth to join the three females from Jersey who went there in February. Fingers crossed for the patter of tiny prehensile tails. 

(Report and photograph by Sue Daly 
Channel Islands (BMLSS *** Recommended Site)

They called it a puffter!

I just love that, Here's another story I have been brought up with from a youngster regarding puffters, or strangers as they are more generally called. 
There is a parasite that invades the crab. During the time of its residence the crab is unable the shed its shell. If the parasitic barnacle Sacculina lives for a number of years it also interacts with the host crabs sex, making it change to either the opposite or a neutral shape, i.e. the claws are neither large as in male, or small as in female. The tail is neither pointed as in male or rounded as in female. The new shape is adopted when the parasite dies and the crab will immediately shed its shell. It will then adopt its new lifestyle, but who knows if it will ever breed or shed its shell again. Know doubt this story is based on fact, but where does the fact end and the fiction begin. 

Never forget, these are genuine "fishermans tales" 

from  Bob Alexander  (Weymouth)

I've been picking up dead Triggerfish, Balistes capriscus, up off the beach in Cornwall since 1991. I keep records of every fish I find, and I take most of them home with me, either to eat (they are always fresh) or to hang up to dry, their skin goes hard and leathery and they make good ornaments (outside). They wash in after Christmas when the sea temperature has dropped, in significant numbers (the most I found was 55 on Constantine Bay). My theory is that they can't take the drop in sea temperature, although they always wash in after! a storm and ground sea, so perhaps its the rough weather they find difficult?  By the way, they are also a common by-catch in lobster pots during the summer months.                                                                                            Nick Darke
Nick Darke  EMail
Triggerfish Database file 

Stalked Jellyfish (British species)  by Jon Makeham 
EMail: makeham@eccabi.demon.co.uk

Do you have any reliable information as to the usual diet of the CornishSucker Lepadogaster lepadogaster ? 

Thanks 

Ben Totterdell 
Marine Warden 
Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre. 
EMail: Charhercen@aol.com

• Andy Horton's Shore Watch column in the Aquarist & Pondkeeper magazine:

In favour of the little fishes of the sea. 
Christmas Book List. 

The West Briton weekly newspaper, environmental column by Richard Shimell. 
Seaquest reports on Cornish marine wildlife. 
Cornish WWT    Tel:  01872 273939. 

NEW BOOKS

The "Christmas Book List" is a "members only" electronic service, although the Booklist will be uploaded to the web site in January 1999.
 

FEATURED SPECIES

A New Series as part of the TORPEDO initiative is now planned for 1999. This will feature a selected species of fish, crab, molluscs, sea anemone or some other invertebrate every month. If you wish to receive this service please indicate. 

Torpedo EMail:  Glaucus@hotmail.com

 Originally, this service was planned for 1998. Try the following web pages: 

Featured Species Trial DataBase:    Common Goby,   Pomatoschistus microps

Print photographs should be sent in to Glaucus House from April 1999. They could also be used on the BMLSS web sites.
However, if you have a large selection of your own photographs, I would suggest that you should arrange your own exhibitions at a Local Library or similar venue. We will help to advertise the event. 

GATEWAY:  LINKS TO OTHER SITES

The British Marine Life Study Society Web Site has been included as an Encylopaedia Britannica Recommended Site and included on the BBC On-line Internet Guide.
 
 

NEW
Aquarium Net	Internet Publication for aquarists with extensive marine coverage.  Very Good.

BMLSS  GATEWAY 1

BMLSS  GATEWAY 2:   Britain & Europe

BMLSS  GATEWAY 3:   America & the Rest of the World

UK BIODIVERSITY
FISHBASE FISHFINDER
CHANNEL ISLANDS MARINE WILDLIFE PAGE
NORWEGIAN MARINE WILDLIFE
PUBLIC AQUARIA DATABASE
SHETLAND NEWS WEBSITE
BRITISH MARINE FISH DATABASE (UK SEA FISHING)
Please see our entry in the BBC Web Guide (NATURE) (FISH)
SHARK TRUST (EUROPEAN ELASMOBRANCH ASSOCIATION BRITISH BRANCH)
FRANK BUCKLAND & THE BUCKLAND FOUNDATION
MARLIN Marine Life Information Network
National Geographic
Dept. of the Environment, Transport & the Regions  - Press Releases -
EUCC   European Union for Coastal Conservation
Aquatic Conservation Network