Llanelli Naturalists Newsletter - November 2000 - No 66
Ian Morgan

In the Llanelli Star of 23 September 1999, it was reported that Mr Robert Jones of Robinson Street, Llanelli had captured a Blue Shark Prionace glauca in Carmarthen Bay. He had also noted a Sunfish Mola mola and a Leatherback Turtle Dermochelys coriacea, the latter 'feeding furiously on jellyfish'. The Sunfish is an oceanic species, which occasionally drifts inshore with the current, whilst the Blue Shark is a potentially dangerous species which normally inhabits warmer waters, though numbers are found off the south-west coasts of Britain in the better summers. Similarly, Leatherback Turtles are usually sighted in Carmarthen Bay in warmer summers (see The Bulletin of the Llanelli Naturalists 2: 16 (1996)). The Leatherback (together with some other marine turtles) is a Biodiversity Action Plan species. It breeds in the tropics and most UK sightings of individuals occur between August and October.

Lewis Weston Dillwyn in his Materials for A Fauna and Flora of Swansea (1848) includes some fascinating old records of unusual fish caught in the Swansea Bay and Gower areas.