BOGUE (BOOPS BOOPS) IN THE SOUTHERN NORTH SEA

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BOGUE (BOOPS BOOPS) IN THE SOUTHERN NORTH SEA J. R. ELLIS AND M. EADE The bogue Boops boops (Linnaeus, 1758) is a small (usually <40 cm) seabream (Perciformes; Sparidae) that is widely distributed in the eastern Atlantic, with records from Norway to Angola, including the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

Within European waters it is most abundant from the Bay of Biscay southwards, and is considered an occasional vagrant in the North Sea. Day (1880–1884) reported that it would occasionally be found off “the southern shores of the British Isles”, with the only British records at this time from Falmouth, Helford and Plymouth. Poll (1947) considered it to be “rare en mer du Nord”, and Redeke (1941) reported four specimens from Dutch waters.

On 19th December 2006 a specimen of Boops boops (28 cm total length, 213 g total weight, Plate 6) was caught off Pakefield. This is one of comparatively few records from the southern North Sea, and possibly only the second authenticated record from Suffolk coastal waters. B. boops was not listed in the early taxonomic lists of the fishes of Suffolk and Norfolk (Patterson, 1906; Patterson, 1910; Collings, 1933), although Blacker & Millner (1984) recorded one specimen from Sizewell power station in April 1981.

Most records of B. boops around the British Isles have come from around Ireland (Quigley & Flannery, 1996), western Scotland (Rae & Wilson, 1954; Rae & Lamont, 1961) and the southern coasts of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset (Blacker, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980). In terms of North Sea records, specimens of B. boops have been reported from off the Shetland Isles, Aberdeen, Troup Head and Burnmouth in Scottish waters (Rae & Lamont, 1965; Rae & Pirie, 1967; Pirie, 1977), as well as the southern North Sea (Table 1).

Although Boops boops has been reported in all seasons of the year from the southern North Sea, recent records suggest that only vagrant, adult fish occur, and bogue does not breed in the North Sea. It should be noted, however, that archaeological remains from Neolithic middens in Sweden suggest that B. boops was relatively common in the North Sea ca. 2500 BC, and also bred in the area at this time, as indicated by the presence of the bones of juvenile specimens (Jonsson, 2005).

Table 1: Overview of recent records of bogue Boops boops in the southern North Sea Location 52º23’N, 03º20’E 52º20’N, 03º50’E

Length Date October 1960 May 1974

52º50’N, 03º00’E 52º15’N, 04º00’E Sizewell power station IJmuiden pier Pakefield beach

35 cm 28 cm

Source Zijlstra, 1962 De Groot (1976) and De Groot & Nijssen (1976)

July 1974 September 1974 April 1981 Blacker & Millner, 1984 January 1983 De Groot (1986) December 2006 This paper

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 43 (2007)

BUTTERFLY RECORDING INSOUTHERN THE FYNN VALLEY BOGUE (BOOPS BOOPS) IN THE NORTH SEA

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Blacker, R. W. (1977). English observations on rare fish in 1975. Annales Biologiques, Copenhagen 32: 184–185.

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Rae, B. B. & Pirie, S. F. (1967). Scottish records of rare fish – 1964. Annales Biologiques, Copenhagen 22: 211–212.

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J. R. Ellis Plate 6: Specimen of bogue Boops boops caught off Pakefield. (p. 72)