Cornish Biodiversity Network - Supporting Wildlife Recording
The descriptive text, below the map, is from the Cornish Red Data Book (2009). The map on this web page depicts the organisms distribution and shows the records made pre-2000 and those made since.
Habitat & Distribution
An offshore demersal inhabitant of the Continental Shelf and Slope with a depth range of 30-600m, usually found on sand or rock-sand bottoms. Very occasionally it wanders into Cornish waters where it may be caught by anglers, in trawls or on bottom long-lines during the summer to early autumn. Its susceptibility to capture, in combination with its life history parameters and population demography, allow little capacity for it to withstand exploitation by fisheries. It has undergone a significant but unquantifiable decline in abundance and extent in the north-east Atlantic. There is anecdotal evidence of decline in the Irish Sea and there is a high potential for collapse in the Celtic Sea. A directed long-line targeted fishery in Brittany has collapsed. This species is on the 2008 IUCN Red List as ' Endangered' . It also receives protection on Annex III of the Bern Convention and is on the UK List of
Priority Species.
I.J. Bennallick, S. Board, C.N. French, P.A. Gainey, C. Neil, R. Parslow, A. Spalding and P.E. Tompsett. eds. 2009. Red Data Book for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. 2nd Edition.Croceago Press.
The Cornish Red Data Book Project was led by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Federation for Biological Recorders (CISFBR). The full text and species accounts (minus the maps) are available on the CISFBR website.