LORNA SIGGINS, Marine Correspondent
A RARE deepwater shark and a “monster” mackerel have been landed by two Irish fishing vessels into Rossaveal, Co Galway.
The shark, which has been identified as a sharpback (Oxynotus Paradoxus), was caught by skipper Colin Reynolds and his crew of the Fragrant Cloud .
Reynolds had never seen anything like the dark-coloured 65cm fish with clearly visible claspers, very rough skin which was taken in a net at 500m.
Sea Fisheries Protection Agency officer Siubhán Ní Churraidhín said the flattened underside suggested that the shark crawled across the seafloor, and its clearly visible teeth resembled a lamprey.
Rare fish expert Dr Declan Quigley, who has kept records with fellow expert Kevin Flannery of Dingle, Co Kerry, noted that the first such sharpback identified was taken from the Labadie Bank off the southwest coast in May 1935.
A second was recorded off Sybil Head, Co Kerry, in June 1967, according to a paper by Quigley and Flannery in the Irish Naturalists’ Journa l. It would be another 21 years before a third was caught, in 1988 off Ballydavid, Co Kerry, and was donated to the National Museum of Ireland.
Ms Ní Churraidhín has also been presented with an oversized or “monster” mackerel (Scomber scombrus) which was caught by Kevin Dowd and Darren O’Sullivan of the Star of Hope .
The 1.3kg mackerel is about 50cm in length, and is among the dozen largest mackerel on record here.
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