Exotic fish warm to Irish waters

Increasingly high seawater temperatures off Ireland are attracting new and unusual fish species to our coasts, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent

The recently released Pixar film, Finding Nemo, may have been set on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, but some of its characters are alive and well in Co Kerry. The clownfish, blue tang, shark, sea turtle, angler fish and other Pixar players can be found within the confines of Mara Beo, the highly successful Dingle aquarium.

The aquarium has set up its own "Nemo" quarter, complete with a coral environment, and clownfish sharing a symbiotic relationship with sea anemones. "We don't call our shark Bruce, but otherwise the cartoonists could have come here for their role models," says Kevin Flannery, Dingle-based Department of Marine fishery officer and an expert on rare and exotic fish.

No, Ireland's climate is not changing far faster than previously forecast: Mara Beo imported the tropical species from Indonesia. However, warmer sea temperatures have been cited as the main reason for a marked change in marine activity off our coastline, as reflected in sightings recorded over the last few months by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group.

In recent weeks, fishermen and scientists have noted increasing numbers of pilot whales, "hundreds" of common dolphins on the prawn grounds west of the Aran islands, and a killer whale close to the islands. It is a continuation of the changing pattern noted two years ago, when anchovies, the small herring-like fish which frequent the Mediterranean and Pacific, were caught as far north as Donegal.

Early in September, a flying gurnard (pictured below right) was snagged in the trawls of the MFV Hercules by skipper Pádraic Dirrane and his crew in Gregory Sound, dividing Inis Mór from Inis Meain. The fish, Dactylopterus volitans, survived for some time and is one of only a handful of such tropical species recorded north of the Bay of Biscay, according to Turloch Smith, fisheries assessment technician with the Marine Institute.

"Dactylopterus volitans is remarkable for its enlarged pectoral fins which form large rounded fan like wings. It is thought that the fish can use these wings to clear the water and glide when pursued by predators. The enlarged fins are also thought to scare off potential predators," Smith says.

Flying gurnards prey on small fish and crustaceans, especially small crabs and clams. As Smith notes, the species is normally found in tropical to warm temperate latitudes on both sides of the Atlantic, and also in the Mediterranean. "While its range is to 52 degrees North, an encounter with a flying gurnard around Ireland is extremely rare," he says.

The fish was frozen after the crew had taken a photograph, and it has been donated to the Natural History Museum in Dublin. "Fishermen often call them sea robins, because of the red colouring, or grunters - due to the sound they make," according to Kevin Flannery, who has come across several examples before.

"Unusually, the bottom dwelling fish, equipped with barbels to feel for crustaceans in the murky dark, modified its fins to enable it to fly."

If Mara Beo can't quite claim that its tropical Nemo crew is indigenous, it does display examples of Ireland's own deep-water coral reefs in the Atlantic. And it is home to some interesting bottom-dwellers - including the anglerfish, which startled Nemo's dad, Marlin, and his blue tang pal, Dory, in the Pixar film. The anglerfish is one of several species landed by Irish deep-water vessels into the Co Kerry port over the last couple of years.

One of Dingle's latest deep-water acquisitions is Dracula, the nickname chosen for the fang-tooth fish brought into port by Michael Flannery, deep-water skipper, last month. The tiny predator, which is equipped with fangs on its tongue as well as its mouth, was caught some 200 miles off the coastline at about 1,200 metres. The fish normally lives some 5,000 metres down in the south Atlantic.