A species of Turbellaria completely new to Swedish waters has been discovered by divers along the Swedish west coast. It is large and dancing in nature and originates from more southerly latitudes. Deep Sea Reporter encountered the new worm at Flatholmen outside Lysekil.
The most likely scenario is that the beautiful red lionfish spread into the sea off the coast of Florida when an aquarium was smashed by Hurricane Andrew thirty years ago, writes the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, the red lionfish is completely dominant along the US coast and is out-competing other species in the ecosystem.
The small but spectacularly beautiful comb jelly Mnemiopsis leydyi, can reproduce at a dismaying speed, and copes with warm and cold water and even different amounts of salinity. And when it spreads to areas where it isn’t naturally found, it can cause devastating damage. As in the Black Sea in the 1980s.
Sargasso seaweed, a brown algae, was initially discovered in 1985 in northern Bohuslän and has since become prevalent along the Swedish west coast.
