The Fastest Slug On Earth!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Kolk
It’s silly season again at the BBC!
A new species of sea slug has been discovered in UK waters.
It was caught off the south-west of England from a research ship.
The creature has been named Pleurobranchaea britannica. It belongs to a group found in warmer waters, which could be migrating north due to climate change.
With ocean temperatures at record levels there is concern about the impact on marine life.
Ross Bullimore of the Centre for the Environment, Food and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) made the serendipitous discovery.
About 100 different sea slugs are found in the seas off Britain and Ireland, but he knew instantly this was something special.
"It was like a light bulb going off," he said.
The scientists say the discovery shows we still have more to learn about life in our seas, which are among the best studied in the world.
"To find a new species that’s not microscopic is quite exciting. It shows that there’s still work to be done," said Peter Barry of CEFAS.
Often referred to as an "indicator species", they can help scientists understand the health of marine ecosystems due to their sensitivity to the impacts of climate change and human pressures.
Members of the group to which the new species belongs – Pleurobranchaea – are usually found in northern Spain, Senegal and throughout the Mediterranean Sea.
"We’re seeing the presence of a species [belonging to a group] which has always previously been recorded in warmer waters," said Ross Bullimore.
"It could indicate that what you’re observing is this group of species being able to expand its range further because conditions are becoming more favourable or more appropriate for it."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68438582
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I don’t claim to be a slug expert, but if this little beast is so rare, how do we know they have not been slithering around our coasts for years? The odds of finding one in this sort of fishing expedition must be minimal.
And the idea that our seas are now as warm as the Mediterranean is obviously absurd. Just as is the idea that these slugs have been “migrating” northwards. In fact it has been established by scientists that they can only move at about 5 cm an hour. If it moves steadily forward at this speed every hour in every day, it would still only cover about a quarter of a mile in a year, by which time it would probably be dead!
It shows just how shoddy environmental science has become, if Ross Bullimore can seriously suggest slugs are migrating. If this little specimen really has arrived from furthermore south, it has probably been carried here on ocean currents, or possibly hitched a lift!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
There are an increasing number of these types of article appearing on the BBC. They are outwardly about a new discovery or event or technology topic but immediately switch to being a climate change propaganda vehicle.
This one is a newly identified species discovery but it took only 4 lines to introduce the term “Climate Change” and then go down the usual alarmist route.
Here is another example purportedly about the launching of the world’s largest cruise ship but again it takes just two lines to introduce the alarmist theme. In fact the article seems to dedicate more coverage to an activist group rather than the headline event.
I find examples of this redirection of such planted news stories are now an almost daily event. Vee hav vays of making you think!
Pre packaged articles from climate alarmist ‘charities’ lapped up by lazy BBC hacks.
The daily reinforcement. Without it, public belief in the narrative would gradually be suspended.
Surely the species migration would not be by crawling along the sea floor but by being carried northwards in currents but NOT dying from the cold as they would have previously?
Or by attaching itself to the Cefas Endeavor perhaps?
The writer is ignorant of migration. What she means is dispersion. Biological migration includes returning. A two-way trip.
What we have here is Helen Briggs, Environment Correspondent, who is ignorant of BASIC BIOLOGY!
The scientists say the discovery shows we still have more to learn about life in our seas, which are among the best studied in the world.
Deep thoughts. Helen learned somethin’ new today.
‘I don’t claim to be a slug expert, but if this little beast is so rare, how do we know they have not been slithering around our coasts for years?’
Exactly. Could be millions of them around.
It belongs to a group found in warmer waters, which could be migrating north due to climate change.
This has FA to do with the discovery. It is gratuitous BS.
With ocean temperatures at record levels there is concern about the impact on marine life.
This has FA to do with the discovery. It is gratuitous BS.
“It could indicate that what you’re observing is this group of species being able to expand its range further because conditions are becoming more favourable or more appropriate for it.”
Sweeping generalization. They found ONE. Dumbass.
The problem scientists have with articles like this is teasing out what is real, and what is ignorant, journalistic BS. To the extent that Bullimore, et al, are real scientists, they will cringe reading it. And realize their name has been associated with this popular science BS.
According to Reuters
“She holds a Master of Philosophy (medical faculty) and Bachelor of Science degree (Biochemistry and Genetics) from Newcastle University.”
So she is either suffering from an incredible level of memory loss or knowingly writing bollocks. You pays your money, you takes your choice.
Nothing in marine biology though which many might consider relevant. Of course, there is form at the BBC for lying on your job application.
The other trick the Green Blob will now play is that because they’ve only just found one, they’ll say it is ‘rare’ and ‘threatened and endangered’ and there you have it another alarm story.
There really are scraping the bottom of the (seabed) barrel with this stuff.
Actually, this one was probably a ‘sex tourist.’ They are all perverts:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/50-shades-of-sea-slug-sex-its-stranger-than-you-think/
So the slug I found in the garden is further irrefutable scientific proof of Sharknado Warmunism and the Second Coming of Al Gore?
Reminds me of the guy who kept racing snails and he had the bright idea that he would remove the shells to make them faster. It just made them more sluggish.
“Often referred to as an “indicator species”, they can help scientists understand the health of marine ecosystems due to their sensitivity to the impacts of climate change and human pressures.”
So proof-positive that the waters off the south-west of England are healthy.
Gamecock never pressured a slug. Wait . . . does putting salt on my sidewalk qualify as ‘pressuring?’
I am sure there are political commissars on the parole in the B(LM)BC who check all news output for opportunities to insert among other things, climate poison. Think of them like a sensor in reverse. They take perfectly reasonable factual content and insert climate virus into it.
This is sadly not limited to their news output. Every aspect of the BBC programming is actively being seen and used as a leftie propaganda opportunity. This wickedly includes children’s programming.
These are people with no morals.
Sorry folks. “Parole” should read “payrole”……
Parole might be better…
5 years ago, I would have said you were hallucinating. But Musk discovered the US government had offices at Twitter . . . they were that deeply embedded. Others found similar situations at Facebook, et al.
So I would say it is highly likely you are correct, pmfb, that your government has staff right there in BBC offices. An affront to free speech and democracy.
Note how ALL MSM TV new headlines are the same SELECTION
and suppress certain other stories
As if everything is controlled by the same Nudge Unit
GreenSupremacist WokeSupremacist
Abd hopefully no job if/when they get rumbled by the public.
I heard this on this morning’s BBC news (I know!) and the script read with a straight face: Scientists believe that this is another symptom of climate change.
Species don’t “migrate north”. Even humans didn’t migrate north out of Africa. Species gravitate and thrive away from their previous range for one of two reasons: they are prospering in their native habitat and the population is expanding, or they at the edge of that habitat that is becoming hostile. In both cases it indicates that conditions are suitable for them in the new environment. Surely that is ecologically good news?
Or it would be, if this article had any merit whatsoever apart from a mildly interesting wildlife note.
Yes it is good news. Even cold water species will be able to move north again as the Arctic Ocean becomes ice free in summer.
Jolly handy find, that. I do hope it’s more truthful than many another fisherman’s tale.
Looking for further ‘tax payers’ funding, again?
I thought everyday was the Silly Season at the BBC.
Feynman said that scientists should look for alternatives to their hypothesis and demonstrate why they are not viable. {or something such}
The ClimateCult™ seems to always use global warming as the first (only?) reason for anything to happen.
Sorry Paul, good laugh but these critters do not move far in their adult lives. They reproduce by releasing a cloud of fertilised eggs into the sea around them which then hatch and the larvae float as plankton on the ocean currents sinking to the sea floor as they mature. They thus spread as far as the currents take them, only constrained by the suitability of the environment in which they arrive. Perhaps our locale is becoming more welcoming???
Perhaps they have been there forever, and someone finally caught one.
Living in the South West, the idea that the local seas are warming enough to support a new species is fanciful. Temperatures are consistently around 9C In February and if there is lots of sun 18/19c by September.
If the sun is limited summer ocean temperatures might be nearer 16/17C
It is the sun that causes the warming as I demonstrated one summer when I took regular ocean temperatures from my small boat.
I swam in the sea last summer (july) of the Lizard Penninsula, It was so cold that it made the back of my neck hurt and gave me a headache. bring on the warming of the sea I say! although like the slug I,ll be dead before any progress in made.
PS: A flat white sorted the head out.
From NZ just for some info around shell fish from the past when CO2 was likely more than now-
https://www.1news.co.nz/2020/05/06/rare-find-workers-on-aucklands-12b-wastewater-project-dig-up-ancient-shells/
Our local BBC radio news has a close relationship with Green PR
This morning they did PR about the Climate Minister’s visit to Carbon Capture idea at the Phillips 66 oil refinery.
There was nothing on Twitter
until 8 hours later when the MP put up his own thread
Curious . . .
What bait do you use for P. britannica?
What does it taste like? Chicken? Spotted owl?
these scientists clearly have not read Julia Donaldson’s “The snail and the Whale” it explains everything
Ross Bullmore says ‘It was like a light bulb going off’ and BBC reports the mixed metaphor verbatim.
It doesn’t inspire much confidence, these people are immune to common sense, I feel dummer after reading their articles.
“…immune to common sense…”
They have travelled in their Alice-in-Wonderland world even beyond the Red Queen, who specialised in believing impossible things before breakfast. They believe impossible things, morning, noon, and night. Such as that the dense water of the sea can pick up heat from the airy vapours of the atmosphere and send it down to the bottom of the sea, to tickle the fancy of a sea-slug.
Presumably, their eggs, either free floating or attached to seaweed, can float with currents or in the bilge water of ships. The time to get from Spain to UK waters may be measured in days rather than years.