The sharksucker, Echeneis naucrates, attaches to a variety of hosts including teleost fish, elasmobranchs, marine turtles, and mammals. We list 18 additional hosts not previously recorded for this species, including the first report of its attachment to a conspecific and review the possible role of the relationship between echeneid fish and their hosts. The attachment of E. naucrates to a conspecific represents an addition to known hosts for this species, but it remains unclear if remoras are a habitual host for conspecifics.

The recent findings of several specimens of the antenna codlet, Bregmaceros atlanticus, in shallow waters off the Israeli and Turkish coasts raise the question of their origin. It is considered unlikely that these records indicate the existence of a small native population in the Mediterranean. Though unrecorded from the Red Sea, it may be yet another Erythrean alien, or it may have entered the Mediterranean in ballast water.

Among the biota collected during two surveys of deep-water dumping sites off the Israeli coast, four species of interest were identified: the bobtail squid, Neorossia caroli caroli, the deep-sea asteroid, Brisingella coronata, and the tonguesole, Symphurus ligulatus, are new for the Levant Sea, while the four-horned octopus, Pteroctopus tetracirrhus, is a new record for the Israeli coast. The growing list of bathybenthic species, resulting from expanding research efforts, challenges the conventional view of the Levant deep-sea biodiversity.

A female with the two tentacles bifurcated was found within a sample of 54 specimens of Moroteuthis ingens collected by a Spanish trawler fishing in the South Atlantic around the Falklands Islands during the austral spring of 2004. This is the first case of double tentacle bifurcation reported for this oegopsid squid and also for cephalopods. In spite of the lack of normal tentacles, the specimen does not show signs of malnutrition. Potential causes for this anomaly, implications to the feeding behaviour of the animal and the regeneration process are discussed.

Bryozoan assemblages developed on panels submerged at five marinas located along the Turkish Aegean coast were examined between September 1993 and March 1995. The settlement of bryozoan species at the marinas, which had different environmental conditions, showed significant differences. The most stressed marina (Station 1) was represented only by Bugula stolonifera. The colony numbers and the frequency values of some sheet forming species such as Schizoporella errata, Parasmittina sp. and Celleporaria sp. at Stations 3 and 4 increased with increasing the duration time of panels in the sea.

Facciola's sorcerer Facciolella oxyrhyncha and driftfish Cubiceps gracilis are first recorded for the eastern Mediterranean. Both species were collected in Antalya Bay, Turkey by commercial trawl at depths of 300 and 250 m, respectively.

The legendary kraken, a giant cephalopod that emerged from the depths to attack ships and devour the sailors is reincarnated here in a miniature version. We describe an oceanic island-dwelling octopus (Octopus sp.nov.) preying on a sea bird, the brown noddy (Anous stolidus) in the tropical West Atlantic. While poised on a tide pool rim the bird was quickly seized by one or two of the octopus's arms and dragged underwater, where the octopus was lying in ambush. We suggest that this prey type hunting occurs occasionally, even if rarely documented. Catching birds may have originated from ambushing mobile and relatively large animals such as Sally Lightfoot crabs (Grapsus grapsus), one prey of octopuses hunting in tide pools at oceanic islands in the tropical West Atlantic.

Since the discovery of the non-native prawn Palaemon macrodactylus in the Orwell estuary in December 2001, the species is now reported from other estuaries in the greater Thames area: Stour, Medway and Thames. A specimen from archived samples from the Thames is now the earliest European record (1992) but the original site and date of introduction into Europe and Britain remains unknown. Competition with the native P. longirostris is a possibility and biologists and naturalists are advised to check prawn specimens from current and archived samples collected from any British or European estuary for P. macrodactylus.

The gastropod Lamellaria mopsicolor utilizes ascidians of the family Didemnidae for food and as an incubatory site for its eggs. Individuals always mimic the colour of their host ascidian. At a study site in south-eastern Brazil, the number of incubatory pouches in each ascidian colony ranged from 3 to 53, and the number of eggs in each pouch ranged from 13 to 164. Larval development inside the colony lasted about six days, and caused the death of the zooids around the incubatory pouch or even a part of the colony. Lamellaria mopsicolor is, therefore, a specialized parasite of ascidians.

Recent scientific and commercial deepwater trawls provide evidence that the loliginid squid, Loligo gahi occurs much deeper than previously believed. Three immature and maturing squids were caught in two hauls between 528 and 626 m depth, exceeding the previous maximum recorded depth of 400 m. An L. gahi egg mass was found on the bottom attached to polychaete tube sampled from depths of 68–71 m. It represents a new spawning habitat, because before the species was known to spawn only in inshore kelp forests, well off the bottom, at depths <20 m.

Based on direct observation of a free-ranging specimen and access to a jaw from a caught animal, the bull shark, Carcharhinus leucas, is reported from Tonga, South Pacific, for the first time. This finding extends the known geographical distribution of this species in the South Pacific.

A specimen of the orange roughy was caught by trawler in the south-west Atlantic in March 2006.

Two notacanthiform Tiluropsis type leptocephali are analysed, thus constituting the southernmost report in the Atlantic Ocean. Specimens are compared with others of the kind taken from the literature. Some considerations about their larvae and Halosauridae, the family they would belong to, are supplied.

Pygmy killer whales, Feresa attenuata were sighted for the first time off the Brazilian coast, SW Atlantic Ocean.

The capture of a specimen of Polymixia nobilis, a rare species in the eastern Atlantic waters north of the Canary and Madeira Islands, is reported as the first record in the vicinity of the Strait of Gibraltar.

This work reports a stranding of a dwarf minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) in 2004 in Caju Bay at Delta of Parnaiba River, Maranhão State (MA), Brazil. The specimen and the maturity characteristics were identified through skull measurements and morphology. Osteological analyses were carried out and abnormal growth of occipital bones was observed. It is premature at this point to suggest that the dwarf minke whale occurs regularly off the north coast of Brazil; however, more information needs to be collected to assess whether the occurrence of the dwarf minke whale is common in this area.

A further specimen of the rare allochthonous scallop Chlamys lischkei was found at Schiavonea di Corigliano Calabro, Gulf of Corigliano (Cosenza), while SCUBA diving at a depth of about 30 m on a muddy detritic bottom. This new single record, the third for the entire Mediterranean Sea and the second for the Italian Seas, confirms the sporadic presence, often believed uncertain, of this species in the Mediterranean Sea.

Recent reports of Kemp's ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) in the Western Mediterranean calls for a re-assessment of the relative importance and the presence of this species in this sea. Different hypotheses to account for the increase in reports are discussed. The present note provides a new report of the species, a juvenile of 28 cm curved carapace length caught close to Valencia (east Spain) on 16 July 2006. Conservation measures in the area should consider this species in the near future.

The first record of the non-indigenous Corella eumyota on the Galicia coast (north-west Spain) is reported. One hundred and forty-one specimens of this solitary ascidian were found on soft bottoms at 12 m depth in the inner part of the Ría de Vigo. This is a species from cooler waters of the southern hemisphere and was recorded for the first time in the northern hemisphere in 2002, in France. The specimens have been compared with Antarctic and South American museum samples. Some intraspecific variability was noted.

Associations of the hairy blenny Labrisomus nuchipinnis (Labrisomidae) are described for the first time from different observations made on the coast of Brazil, South Atlantic. The first involved a majid crab cleaning the fish and the second, another fish following closely a foraging hermit crab of the genus Paguristes (Diogenidae).