The Kraken Wakes?
Dec. 22nd, 2025 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oursin2025 is ‘year of the octopus’ as record numbers spotted off England’s south coast:
The common or Mediterranean octopus, Octopus vulgaris, is native to UK waters but ordinarily in such small numbers it is rarely seen. A sudden increase in the population – a bloom – is caused by a combination of a mild winter followed by a warm breeding season in the spring. The ideal conditions meant that more of the larvae of the common octopus were likely to survive, said Slater, possibly in part fuelled by the large numbers of spider crabs that have also been recorded along the south coast in recent years.
(Oy! Ooo are you callin' octopus vulgaris?)
(We will just note that one of the novels by a certain Lady Anonyma featured Cornish wreckers and Sea Monsters.)
There were also
a record number of grey seals observed by the Cumbria Wildlife Trust, as well as record numbers of puffins on Skomer, an island off the coast of Wales famed for the birds.... the first Capellinia fustifera sea slug in Yorkshire, a 12mm mollusc that resembles a gnarly root vegetable and is usually found in the south-west. In addition, a variable blenny, a Mediterranean fish, was discovered off the coast of Sussex for the first time.
Rather creepier stuff to do with animals (or rather, humans doing creepy things with animals) a little less further westwards: New Forest residents unnerved by man leaving animal carcasses by churches
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