A new species of sea slug has been discovered in UK waters.
It was caught off the south-west of England from a research ship.
The creature has been named Pleurobranchaea Britannica. It belongs to a group found in warmer waters, which could be migrating north due to climate change.
With ocean temperatures at record levels there is concern about the impact on marine life.
Ross Bullimore of the Centre for the Environment, Food and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) made the serendipitous discovery.
About 100 different sea slugs are found in the seas off Britain and Ireland, but he knew instantly this was something special.
It’s a new type of sea slug. Talk about an anticlimax.
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A slight variant on a type of known sea slug that’s a little more north than usual, at that.
And there’s a hundred different sea slugs surrounding the country as well. Hard to imagine news that deserved this headline less, really.
Hey, this kind of thing kept Darwin in business for decades.
“Look, a new beetle!!”
These days, though, we know that for every type of beetle there is, there is a species of parasitic wasp that exclusively targets it.