Posts
Raining cats and dogs
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Wednesday, 5 February 2014 08:37
This is the eggcase of the Small-spotted Catshark (also known as the Lesser-spotted Dogfish!). After recent storms there were masses of these washed up on Brighton beach at the weekend. I can remember regularly seeing small dogfish washed up dead on the beach at Tal-y-bont in Wales when I was a kid. They were probably the same species. Frustratingly, I am yet to see one of these animals alive, so it's not one of the 69 UK species of fish I have on my list. The records though are valuable and I'll submit them. You can key out catsharks, skate and ray eggcases on this website, it's a great resource. I was totally gripped though, as on the same day, a colleague found an eggcase of the rare Cuckoo Ray on the same stretch of beach. This was a stunningly beautiful looking thing and I'd love to find my own!
Dogfish to catshark? Quite a drastic name change! Next they'll be called Mousewhales. But seriously, anyone know why the name change?
Posted in
I have one of those sitting on my desk at work! It's from the west coast of Scotland. I think I'll stick with calling it a dogfish