Landlocked Mermaid

Marine Creature of the Month Famous Fish Piranha 3D (2010). Photo from Syfy Red Bellied Piranha: Piranha Ok, so not technically "marine" but these Amazonian toothy delights are iconic, don't you agree? Kingdom: Animalia Class: Actinopterygii Conservation Status: Not Evaluated (NE) WHAT ARE THEY? To put it bluntly, they are a fish. A freshwater fish with a laterally compressed body. They grow up to 50cm (20in) in length, but the average is closer to 35cm (14in). As the name would suggest, the adults sport a lovely red tinged belly. As juveniles, they are grey with dark spots which develop into a more silvery colour as they mature. Like with a lot of fish, they show sexual dimorphism - the ladies have redder bellies than the men. Their fins are black or red to orange across both genders. Of course, when we think of piranhas we think of lots of razor sharp teeth! (And that it's a difficult word to spell!) They do have a mouthful of teet...

Imagine it. Tuesday afternoon, I have just finished my blog post about Angler Fish and my partner Chris comes upstairs to say he has a job. For those of you that don't know, he is a mobile bike mechanic for Shropshire and the surrounding areas. The job he got called in for on Tuesday was an interesting one, he told me. It was for a waterbike and the chap who was riding it was doing a canal litter pick for charity. I'm sure it'll be no surprise to hear that I had literal emoji heart eyes. Feeling like a proper journalist about to chase their scoop, this was a story I had to know more about! Thankfully, Chris let me tag along. The waterbike. Photo by RTR At Tylrey Locks we met Hughie, the young man with the waterbike. While Chris set about fixing it, Hughie told me a little about what he was doing and the charity he was volunteering for: an adventure collective called SayYesMore.com , founded by Dave Cornthwaite in 2012. SayYesMore encourage folk of all ages to d...

*cough* Rivers *cough* Sarcosuchus Photo: Max Thomas Kingdom: Animalia Class: Reptillia Conservation Status: Extinct (EX) Found: Africa (sometimes South America) Era: Cretaceous Lived : 112 million years ago Diet: Fish Weight: Up to 8 tonnes* Size: 11-12m (36-39ft)* Habitat: Tropical regions, freshwater rivers.  *Estimates The Sarcosuchus is a giant crocodylian which lived over 112 million years ago, during the Cretaceous era. It is a distant relative of the modern living crocodylians, but has no direct living relatives as they are technically a pholidosaur.  Fragments of this gargantuan "croc" were first found between 1946-1956 by French paleontologists. More complete speciemens were not found until the late 20th century. From the fragments, scientists were able to extrapolate the estimated 11-12m size of the Sarcosuchus, which is over twice the size of the largest modern crocodile. The initial fragments were from the skull and p...