Human Sacrifice, Dogs and Cats Living Together, Mass Hysteria!

That's a fine looking flying squid And now we have Neon Flying Squids.

This is a harbinger of something, and I do not think that it will end well.

On a research vessel 15 years ago, a group of Japanese scientists documented something that had only previously been described by startled sailors to disbelieving listeners. They saw a formation of squid flying through the air.

The shoal of about 100 squid rose unexpectedly from a patch of the Pacific Ocean around 370 miles from Tokyo and glided near the boat for about 30 metres. The astonished researchers were the first to capture photographs of such a thing, which looked like the early stages of an alien invasion.

They were probably neon flying squid (Ommastrephes bartramii), the subsequent study states, a species that is part of a 20-strong flying squid family that was known to leap from the water but, until then, was only rumoured to also be able to glide above it.

The neon flying squid was able to gain such elevation by using the hyponome, a funnel-like muscular organ also present in other cephalopods, such as octopuses. The organ is able to force water out in a jet, propelling the body along both in and out of the sea. Photographs of the gliding squid show them with their arms (they have 10 limbs in all) splayed outwards.

Neon flying squid are about the length of a rolling pin and tend to gather near the surface to feed upon fish and crustaceans. It’s unclear exactly why they would fly in unison in this way, with one possible explanation being that they were evading a predator, such as a shark.

This is some seriously weird sh%$.

Finally, Some Good News from the UK

Unfortunately fro British subjects, the https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30yrqem5l6o, and not one of the myriad of problems in the island nation.

A yellow eel spotted for the second time in Coventry is "rare and exciting", says an expert, who is appealing for help from the public to track further local sightings.

Alexander Jones, ecology and biodiversity officer at Coventry City Council, saw one in the River Sherbourne in 2024 but was shocked to see a second this year, since the fish used to be one of the most common species locally, but is now one of the rarest.

The second sighting in the river suggests it is making a slow comeback, Jones said.

"We've lost over 90% of our eels in the last few decades, so they are critically endangered," he explained. "The fact we're starting to see them in Coventry is really... positive."

The European eel is a critically endangered species of fish, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

 The British are not yet ready to start serving jellied eel again, but that is a good thing too.

We Are Unbelievably Screwed

Remember the claims that in the next few decades anthropogenic climate change will result in increases in sea level?

Well, it's already here, at least according to this study in Nature.

Abstract

The impacts of sea-level rise and other hazards on the coasts of the world are determined by coastal sea-level height and land elevation. Correct integration of both aspects is fundamental for reliable sea-level rise and coastal hazard impact assessments but is often not carefully considered or properly performed. Here we show that more than 99% of the evaluated impact assessments handled sea-level and land elevation data inadequately, thereby misjudging sea level relative to coastal elevation. Based on our literature evaluation, 90% of the hazard assessments assume coastal sea levels based on geoid models, rather than using actual sea-level measurements. Our meta-analyses on global scale show that measured coastal sea level is higher than assumed in most hazard assessments (mean offsets [standard deviation] of 0.27 m [0.76 m] and 0.24 m [0.52 m] for two commonly-used geoids). Regionally, predominantly in the Global South, measured mean sea level can be more than 1 m above global geoids, with the largest differences in the Indo-Pacific. Compared with geoid-based assumptions of coastal sea level, the measured values suggest that with a hypothetical 1 m of relative sea-level rise, 31–37% more land and 48–68% more people (increasing estimates to 77–132 million) would fall below sea level. Our results highlight the need for re-evaluation of existing coastal impact assessments and improvement of research community standards, with possible implications for policymakers, climate finance and coastal adaptation.

It turns out that the climatologists were wrong.  It's worse than they have ever predicted.

Today in Democratic Party Psychopaths

I am referring, of course to Washington State Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. (Ecch/Twitter link here, the comments are ……… interesting.)

To be fair Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez, in addition to being a psychopath, she is also a f%$#ing moron.

Even a cursory study of of the state of the salmon fisheries in the Pacific Northwest show where the problems are, agricultural runoff, real estate development driven pollution, pollution and genetic contamination from aquaculture in Puget Sound, hydro-power, and (of course) over-fishing.

For Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, all that matters is that power companies, big agriculture, real estate developers, and other polluters can write a campaign donation check, and sea lions cannot.

For the love of God, someone primary her. 

It's a Fart Story, so I Write About It, OK?

It appears that the Royal Navy went on high alert in response to whale farts.

Burritos need to be kept far away from the Royal Navy:

The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom started a frenzied hunt for phantom Russians off the coast after hearing two weird sounds in the water, only to discover that the noises were caused by a gassy whale, an official told The Sun.

Naval authorities were concerned that one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drone submarines had placed a listening device on the ocean floor between two Scottish islands, launching an inquiry.

The two toots were discovered around 100 miles from where the UK’s doomsday submarines are located.

“We have been analyzing the sounds and now believe it was a marine mammal. A whale” the officer informed the British tabloid.

The sound, initially identified by analysts as a man-made noise, had never before been detected by the sensors, causing the navy to misinterpret Das Boof for Das Boot, according to the article.

Not to toot my own horn (no apologies for that turn of phrase), but I like to think of myself as the go to source for flatulence related news.

An Old Fashion Returns

But it ain't human fashion, it's Orcas wearing salmon hats again after a 37 year hiatus.

I'm hoping that this means that the miniskirt will be coming back:

Northwest Pacific orcas have started wearing salmon hats again, bringing back a bizarre trend first described in the 1980s, researchers say.

Last month, scientists and whale watchers spotted orcas (Orcinus orca) in South Puget Sound and off Point No Point in Washington State swimming with dead fish on their heads.

Off of Point No Point?  If that is not going seriously meta on fashion, I do not know what is.

This is the first time they've donned the bizarre headgear since the summer of 1987, when a trendsetting female West Coast orca kickstarted the behavior for no apparent reason. Within a couple of weeks, the rest of the pod had jumped on the bandwagon and turned salmon corpses into must-have fashion accessories, according to the marine conservation charity ORCA — but it's unclear whether the same will happen this time around.

Researchers think the orcas sporting salmon hats now may be veterans of the trend when it first appeared nearly 40 years ago. "It does seem possible that some individuals that experienced [the behavior] the first time around may have started it again," Andrew Foote, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Oslo in Norway, told New Scientist.

I have a theory.  It involves orca Instagram and orca influencers.

This theory is (of course) complete bollocks.

I am Clearly in the Wrong Timeline

When antivaxxer, hypocrite, bat-sh%$ insane fruit loop, and former Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announces that he is under federal investigation for beheading a dead beached whale, all of use are clearly in the wrong timeline:

Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that he is being investigated by federal authorities for collecting the head from a decapitated whale carcass.

During a campaign event on Saturday for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, in Glendale, Arizona, the former independent presidential candidate said: “I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago.”

He added: “This is all about the weaponization of our government against political opponents.”

Kennedy, who endorsed the former president after dropping out of November’s election, fell under scrutiny in recent weeks after the resurfacing of a 2012 interview that his daughter Kick gave to Town & Country in which she addressed the whale in question.


Recounting how the creature washed up on a beach near Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, she said: “[He] ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale’s head and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet. We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day to day stuff for us.”

Seriously?

I don't know what's coming next in this year's parade of dysfunction, but if I had to make a prediction, it would be that RFJ, Jr. would be outed as a sadistic equestrian necrophiliac, but that's probably beating a dead horse.

Headline of the Day

Down into the Ocean’s ‘Twilight Zone’ with Boaty McBoatface

—BBC

Yeah, I know, "Boaty McBoatface," is so last decade, and I still think that they should have named the boat that, and not just the remotely piloted submersible.

Still, it's nice that Boaty is doing science:

Battling choppy waves and high winds, three engineers pulled ashore a yellow submarine in Scotland this week.

With sheets of water pouring from its body, the UK’s most famous robot - Boaty McBoatface - was winched up after 55 days at sea.

“It’s a bit slimy, and ocean smells have seeped in. There’s a few things growing on it,” says Rob Templeton, now dismantling the 3.6m robot in Leverburgh, on the Isle of Harris.

Boaty has completed a more-than-2,000km scientific odyssey from Iceland that could change what we know about the pace of climate change.

It was hunting for marine snow - “poo, basically” in the words of one researcher. This refers to tiny particles that sink to the ocean floor, storing huge amounts of carbon. 

………

The public originally picked the name Boaty McBoatface for a polar ship in 2016. That didn't happen, but instead the name was quietly given to a fleet of six identical robots at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton.

They said that they would name the next research based on the public vote, and then they ignored the voice of the public, and named the boat RRS Sir David Attenborough.

No offense to Sir Attenborough, but Boaty was robbed.

They are Better Organized than You Think

Just over a year ago, I noted the phenomenon of Killer Whales sinking boats. 

Cetologists thought that this might be some sort of play, or some sort of fad, like the Killer Whale fish hats in the mid 1980s.

Well, they just sank another boat in the Mediterranean.

I'm thinking that this is not play, I think that we are dealing with a: bunch of 5 to 10 tonne extremely angry apex predators:

Robert Powell, the skipper of the Beneteau 393 Clipper, Bonhomme William, had researched details of any orca encounter in the Strait of Gibraltar before leaving Vilamoura in the Algarve bound for the Greek islands.

After checking the numerous orca Facebook groups, such as Orca Attack Reports, and believing the orcas were now heading north, following the migrating tuna, he felt now would be a good time to sail his yacht to the Greek islands with crew.

………

By the following evening, the yacht was off Punta Camarinal in the Strait of Gibraltar.

” I went up on deck, and all of a sudden, I heard a crunch, and it sounded like I’d hit a rock. It was like a really loud scraping noise and there was a real big shudder on the boat. I thought I’d hit a container or a fishing net or something submerged. I was probably about five miles out so it was unlikely to be a rock and there was nothing on the charts.

I took the boat off auto and just took the wheel for a sec. And as I took the wheel, I felt the rudder go, and I heard the noise again. I thought, Geez, that’s not a rock. I thought maybe a rope had wrapped around the prop, but then I looked off the back of the boat, and there were two fairly young orcas, not quite fully grown.”

………

This was the start of a two-and-a-half hour orca encounter which resulted in the sinking of Bonhomme William.

Powell said he followed the orca encounter advice: he let go of the wheel, tried to outrun the orcas and put the boat in reverse, all to no avail.

This is not orca Parcheesi.

I don't know what is going on, but it's weird and pissed off.

Awesome Baby Pics

See Baby C. carcharias at about 7:30 in the vid
Baby Shark, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo

Yes, its the first ever video (and first ever picture period) of a newborn Great White Shark.

Cute little guy, who will one day grow up and be the terror of the seas:

A wildlife filmmaker and biology student have recorded something scientists have long been searching for: the first-ever glimpse of a newborn great white shark.

The young pup was spotted several hundred meters off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, in July last year in some mesmerizing drone footage captured by filmmaker Carlos Gauna.

With its two black eyes poking out above the ocean surface and its milk-white body below, it could be mistaken for a dugong or manatee. But its protruding snout, sleek body, and angular caudal fin cannot be confused for anything other than a white shark.

White sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), also known as great white sharks, are typically gray on top with a lighter, white underbelly. Pregnant females produce 'uterine milk', a yellowish and milky fluid for embryos to consume.

Guana had seen several seemingly pregnant sharks in the same area just days before the sighting. So the bright white shark immediately stood out to him when it surfaced.

………

The sighting has yet to be confirmed as a newborn white shark, although Gauna and coauthor Phillip Sternes, a shark biologist at the University of California Riverside, have published their findings in a peer-reviewed journal, describing how the pup might have been days or even hours old given its appearance.

What's more, the finding adds to earlier reports from 2020 of the smallest known white shark, just one meter long and thought to be a newborn, which was caught off the Pacific coast near the US-Mexico border.

"There are a lot of hypothetical areas, but despite intense interest in these sharks, no one's seen a birth or a newborn pup in the wild," says Sternes.

"This may well be the first evidence we have of a pup in the wild, making this a definitive birthing location."

He's a cute little tyke.

Hello, SyFy? I Have a Treatment for You

It appears that sharks may be binging on cocaine dumped off the Florida coast.

So, how do I get an option to write the script?

Move over, Cocaine Bear. Here come cocaine sharks.

In what could be the plotline for the next cheesy marine-themed disaster movie, scientists think crazed and hungry sharks could be feasting on bales of hallucinatory drugs dumped off the Florida coast.

Yet while Cocaine Sharks – a highlight of Discovery’s upcoming Shark Week – does indeed examine if the ocean predators are chomping on floating pharmaceuticals cast overboard by passing traffickers, marine scientists who made the TV program say its purpose is beyond gratuitous entertainment.

………

Cocaine Sharks is expected to be among the biggest draws of Shark Week, the Discovery network’s popular annual showcase of the species from great whites, hammerheads and tiger sharks down to the smallest varieties.

In their research, conducted during six days at sea in the Florida Keys, the ecologically sensitive island chain off the state’s southern tip, Fanara and British marine biologist Tom Hird observed sharks exhibiting peculiar behaviors.

………

They also conducted experiments, including dropping dummy bales in the water, which many of the sharks took bites out of, and loading balls of bait with highly concentrated fish powder to simulate cocaine.

OK, that is going to look weird on a resume.

The effect, the researchers said, was akin to catnip on felines. “It’s the next best thing [and] set their brains aflame. It was crazy,” Hird says on the show.

I have cats, and I give them catnip every Saturday, I call it their Shabbos Schnaps.

I am not officially terrified.

………

“At the end of every research publication you read ‘more research must be done’, and that’s definitely the conclusion from this,” she said, noting previous in-depth studies of polluted inland waterways suggesting fish had become addicted to methamphetamine.

Not so terrifed about sharks on meth.  It makes your teeth fall out.

As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know."

Warm Blooded Mega Shark

Based on isotopic studies of the remains of C. Megaladon, it appears that the largest shark that ever existed could maintain a relatively constant body temperature regardless of the outside water temperature.

This is not unknown among fish, a number of fish, including Great White Sharks and Bluefin Tuna, still have this ability:

The largest shark alive today, reaching up to 20 meters long, is the whale shark, a sedate filter feeder. As recently as 4 million years ago, however, sharks of that scale likely included the fast-moving predator megalodon, famous for its utterly enormous jaws and correspondingly huge teeth.

Because of incomplete fossil data, we're not entirely sure how large megalodon was and can only make inferences based on some of its living relatives, like the great white and mako sharks. But thanks to some new research on its fossilized teeth, we're now fairly confident that it shared something else with these relatives: it wasn't entirely cold-blooded and apparently kept its body temperature above that of the surrounding ocean.

Most sharks, like most fish, are ectothermic, meaning that their body temperatures match those of the surrounding water. But a handful of species, part of a group termed mackerel sharks, have a specialized pattern of blood circulation that helps retain some of the heat their muscles produce. This enables them to keep some body parts at a higher temperature than their surroundings. A species called the salmon shark can maintain a body temperature that's 20° C warmer than the sub-Arctic waters that it occupies.

Megalodon is also a mackerel shark, and some scientists have suggested that it, too, must have been at least partially endothermic to have maintained its growth rates in the varied environments that it inhabited. But, as we mentioned, the megalodon remains we have aren't even sufficient to let us know how large the animal was, much less whether it had the sort of specialized circulatory structure needed for shark endothermy.

So, a team of researchers decided to directly test whether there were signs it regulated its body temperature using things we actually do have: its teeth.

The work relies on a phenomenon known as isotope clumping. If an environment is warm enough, the small weight differences between atomic isotopes don't matter, as the heat is warm enough to thoroughly mix isotopes within a material. But as things cool down, heavier isotopes tend to pool together, forming clumps within a material. We now have equipment that can track the distribution of isotopes within a material at high resolution, allowing a direct measure of its clumpiness. That, in turn, can be used to generate an estimate of the temperature at which the material formed.

So giant warm-blooded sharks who can hunt marine mammals because they don't suffer from hypothermic torpor.

Science and nature are wonders.

And the Mineral Source of the Future Remains a Decade Away

Just like it did in 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, 2003, and 2013.

I am referring, of course to mining ocean beds for manganese nodules, which have been touted as a source for  manganese, nickel, copper,and cobalt.

There has always been something preventing the development of this resource.  This time high levels of radioactivity in the nodules:

Manganese nodules at the bottom of the deep sea contain a wealth of valuable metals that are vital to the electronics and steelmaking industries. Accordingly, these sectors and many countries have pinned their hopes on deep-sea mining to meet the growing demand for raw materials like cobalt and rare-earth elements.

In a study just released in the journal Scientific Reports, experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute show that such activities could not only have ecological impacts, but also pose health hazards, for example, in connection with the industrial mining and processing of the nodules. According to their findings, in some cases, the radioactivity of radium-226 in the nodules exceeds the safe limit defined in the German Strahlenschutzverordnung (Radiation Protection Ordinance) 100- to 1,000-fold.

Large areas of the ocean floor are covered with polymetallic nodules and crusts. The potato-sized manganese nodules can be found in all oceans, especially in the Pacific Ocean, at water depths between 4,000 and 6,000 meters. Formed over millions of years, they contain valuable metals like copper, nickel, cobalt and rare-earth elements—in other words, a range of elements required for the manufacture of electronic products like computers, smartphones, batteries, magnets, motors and high-tech components.

I don't expect meaningful mining of manganese modules in my lifetime.

Maybe They Are Just Pissed Off?

On a number of occasions here, I have said, "Do not f%$# with corvids,  (Crows and Ravens) because they are extremely intelligent, engage in sophisticated actions as a group, including multi-generational vendettas, etc.

It looks like, I will need to add this recommendation to orcas, (Killer Whales) who have taken to sinking boats off of the coast of Spain.

I'm not sure whether this is as a result their pod members being killed by fishing nets, or by the extremely aggressive Spanish fishing practices (strip mining in the ocean), but something has definitely gotten them angry:

In the early morning Thursday, killer whales smashed into a sailboat off the southern coast of Spain, puncturing its hull and damaging its rudder. Spanish authorities raced to save the sinking vessel, according to Reuters, but it was in such disrepair it had to be towed ashore.

It wasn’t the first attack by an orca, or killer whale, off the coast of Spain and Portugal this year. And it may not be the last time one chews a rudder or crashes into a hull. Normally, killer whales aren’t considered dangerous to humans. But pods of killer whales have done serious damage to boats in the region about a dozen times already this year, according to the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica, or GTOA, a research group studying the region’s killer whales, part of a rise in attacks first observed in 2020.

Stories and videos of the attacks widely shared on social media have turned the orca into a meme. After the marine mammals struck some fancy yachts, some observers are calling the strikes concentrated around the Strait of Gibraltar, where the whales congregate in the spring and summer, an act of anti-capitalist solidarity from “orca comrades” and “orca saboteurs.” For others, the series of strikes is eerily similar to a scene in James Cameron’s latest “Avatar” movie, “The Way of the Water.”

So what is happening? The scientists studying the whales themselves aren’t entirely sure, either. But they have two leading ideas:

Yeah, the two theories are that the whales are just roughhousing, which I find unlikely since they target things like rudders which are calculated to disable boats, or vengeance.

………

Orcas off the Iberian Coast like to follow fishing vessels to snag bluefin tuna before fishermen can reel them in, putting the aquatic mammals at risk of being struck or entangled. Scientists have seen killer whales in those waters with fishing lines hanging from their bodies.

So it is possible, López Fernandez said, an orca had a bad run-in with a boat in the past, and is now teaching other killer whales how to attack vessels as well. The team suspects a female adult named White Gladis may be the one doing so.

López Fernandez emphasized we don’t have enough information to know the real reason behind the attacks yet. Even assuming the second theory is true, “we don’t know what that triggering stimulus could have been,” he said.

Stealing their food, injuring and killing their loved ones, what could possibly motivate them?

Set up a marine sanctuary and give them some space.

After a few years, they will probably mellow out a big.

Sharknado!!!1!!!!!

The storm surge is so powerful from #HurricaneIan that it has brought a shark into the city streets of Fort Myers.

🎥@BradHabuda pic.twitter.com/RHY0kK5RHR

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) September 28, 2022

This message has been brought to you by anthropogenic climate change.

Reality beats satire every time.

Well, That's a Damn Shame

5 weeks after an Italian auto executive took delivery of a £20 million super-yacht, it caught fire, and appears to be a write off.

Thankfully, the 7 crew and 9 passengers were evacuated without injury. 

Am a bad person because the destruction of a multi-million pound toy of some overpaid executive makes me smile?

To quote Descartes last words, "I think Not."

A brand-new £20m superyacht has been destroyed by fire in the Balearics weeks after it was delivered to its multimillionaire owner, the Italian car industry boss Paolo Scudieri.

The 43.7-metre Aria SF caught fire on Thursday afternoon while anchored at Cala Saona, on the west coast of Formentera, according to Salvamento Marítimo, the Spanish sea search and rescue agency.

Seven crew members and nine passengers on the ship were unharmed and evacuated to other boats nearby, but the Aria is thought to be unsalvageable. The cause and origin of the fire are as yet unknown. The yacht will be towed to Ibiza later on Friday.

The yacht, which had a gym and a pool and could accommodate up to 10 guests across five staterooms, was delivered to Scudieri late last month.

………

Scudieri, the president of Adler-Hp Pelzer Group, an automotive parts supplier, is estimated to have built up a $500m fortune. He owns a Ferrari that he races in the Ferrari Challenge, a race series for Ferrari owners.

I am amused.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

***BREAKING***

Evidence #Russian Navy trained dolphins deployed to entrance of Sevastopol Harbor during #Ukraine war. You heard it here first.

First found in low-resolution Sentinel 2 imagery

Thx for help from @COUPSURE and unnamed othershttps://t.co/Fhtek0CVaA

— H I Sutton (@CovertShores) April 27, 2022

Seriously, is Joseph Heller writing the script for this?

Headline of the Day

Otter-ly Adorable Climate Change Warriors May Save California's Coastal Ecosystems

—Atlas Obscura

It's an interesting article about how otters almost insatiable appetite for sea urchins, which have been laying waste to California kelp forests.

Also, cute otters!

Great News, but It Doesn’t Sound That Way

Seriously, if someone told you that they had found venomous sharks in the River Thames in London, you would think that they were talking about a US sequel to Sharknado, but this is actually happening, and it's a good thing, because it shows that life is finally returning to the long dead waterway:

In 1957, the Thames was declared as “biologically dead” due to the extreme levels of pollution it suffered from - but over 60 years of environmental and conservation work has seen life return to its waters.

According to the first ever State of the Thames Report by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the Thames is now home to the likes of sharks, seals, seahorses and more.

………

According to the ZSL, the report found that the “overall picture was bright for nature, with evidence of an increase in a range of bird species, marine mammals and natural habitats such as carbon-capturing saltmarsh”.

Surprising species which now live in the Thames include “seahorses, eels, seals and even sharks”.

………

The ZSL found that “tope, starry smooth hound and spurdog” sharks are now living in the Thames.

A tope shark (scientific name: galeorhinus galeus) can grow up to six feet long and can weigh up to 48kg. You can identify a tope shark by its grey upper body, white belly, two dorsal fins and a distinctive notched tail, according to The Wildlife Trusts.

These sharks feed on a variety of fish as well as crustaceans and even cephalopods if the opportunity presents itself.

Tagging studies have shown that tope sharks tagged in the UK have later been found as far away as the Canary Islands.

The tope shark is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list, and is classified as a “priority species” under the UK Post-2010 Biodiversity Framework.

The starry smooth hound (scientific name: mustelus asterias) is a small species of shark which can grow up to four and a half feet, with a maximum weight of 4.8kg. The starry smooth-hound is identified by the scattered white dots around its top, fin and tail.

This species of shark feed primarily on the likes of crabs, lobsters and small, bony fish.

Finally, the spurdog shark (scientific name: squalus acanthias) is a slender shark which can grow up to three feet long, with an average lifespan of up to 70 years.

The spurdog shark gets its name from the spines found in front of its dorsal fin. It uses these spines to defend itself by circling into a bow and then striking at a predator.

It is one of the few venomous fish found in UK waters, as the spines secret a venom which can cause symptoms like swelling and discomfort in humans.

Other identifiable features of the spurdog shark is its pointed snout, big eyes, grey/brown colouring and rows of white spots down its sides.

This is completely positive news.  The only thing that could make it better would be if Boris Johnson were to take a swim in the Thames.

Headline of the Day

When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid From a Clamp, That’s a Moray

—New York Times

It's an interesting article, but I have to think that they spent WAY more time on the headline than they did on a story about Moray Eels hunting on land.