Marine Dimensions & Purse Search Ireland

Meet the Minke whale! 🐋

Minke whales are the second smallest baleen whale in the world, and they can be spotted off the coast of Ireland! This species can grow up to 9m/30ft long and are known for their streamlined bodies and distinctive dorsal fin, which is tall & sickle-shaped.

But what exactly is a baleen whale? Baleen whales, such as Minke, use plates composed of keratin (the same material as our nails) to filter food from the water. Instead of teeth, they take in large amounts of water and then push it out through the baleen, trapping tiny fish & plankton inside to eat.

In Ireland, sightings of Minke whales are most common during the summer months when they come close to shore to feed. 🍽

Come and join the Marine Institute’s Explorers team with your friends and family for a fin-tastic time building some amazing shark and mermaids sand sculptures for EMD as part of a coast to coast challenge from Donegal, Galway, Kerry to Dublin.

Help us find evidence of mermaids and their purses (aka shark & skate egg cases) on the shore as well as learning more about some of the amazing sharks in Irish waters and around the world. We will also be exploring, doing seashore walks and completing a litter pick challenge. Spot prizes will be given out on the day to the winning shark and mermaids sand sculptures. Prizes are provided by the Marine Institute’s Explorers Education Programme.

Dublin Event this Saturday on Sandycove Beach at 3:30!


Marine Institute - Foras na Mara
Marine Dimensions & Purse Search Ireland

We hope to see you this Saturday for a fun family event on Sandycove Beach in Dublin! Join the Explorers Programme along with Brid from Marine Dimensions & Purse Search Ireland for European Maritime Day in My Country!

Marine Institute - Foras na Mara

So excited for this Saturday's European Maritime Day in Sandycove Beach with our friends Explorers Education Programme! 🦈

"Purse Search Ireland is Ireland's national shark and skate citizen science project. Run by Marine Dimensions, it's an opportunity for the public to participate in conservation science by sending us their recordings of Mermaids' Purse sightings, the eggcases of sharks and skates."

Join Brid and Marine Dimensions & Purse Search Ireland along with the Explorers Education Programme this Saturday for the EMD in My Country family day out on Sandycove Beach in Dublin at 3:30pm!


Marine Institute - Foras na Mara Marine Dimensions & Purse Search IrelandMarine Dimensions & Purse Search Ireland

We're so happy to see the publication of this paper that uses data from Purse Search Ireland! 🦈🥚

Thank you to everybody for sending us in your sightings of mermaids' purses from all around Ireland! Citizen science is so powerful 💪

The distribution of the juvenile stages and eggcases of skates (Rajidae) around the British Isles Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems is an international journal focusing on the conservation of freshwater, brackish or marine habitat.

Refreshing sunset eggcase hunt 🦈🛼🥚

This is the Atlantic wolffish, Anarhichas lupus. 🐺🐟

The wolffish lives in rocky habitats in the North Atlantic Ocean & can be found to depths of up to 500m. Their colours range from olive green to brown, providing camouflage in their rocky habitats. A female wollfish will lay her eggs in rocky crevices where a male will guard the eggs until they hatch.

The wolffish has powerful jaws and sharp teeth, making them a very effective predator. Both their lower and upper jaws have 4-6 fang-like, strong, conical teeth. Behind these teeth in the upper jaw there are three rows of crushing teeth, the central row of which has four pairs of molars, and the outer rows of which have blunt conical teeth. The lower jaw has two rows of molars behind the primary conical teeth & their throat is also scattered with serrated teeth!

Did you know that Lesser Spotted Dogfish have different personalities? A study from Exeter University in 2014 showed that individuals have different personality traits, with some being more sociable than others, some more aggressive, and some more exploratory in nature. 🦈

The Lesser Spotted Dogfish (aka the Small-spotted Carshark aka Scyliorhinus canicula) is the most abundant egg-laying elasmobranch in Ireland & one of the most abundant across the northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea. That's why we so often find their eggcases on Irish beaches!

If you find any eggcases from the Lesser Spotted Dogfish or any other elasmobrachs, we're happy to announce that you can once again submit your sighting at Purse Search Ireland, because our website is back up & running! 🥳 We can't wait to see what eggcases you come across! https://marinedimensions.ie/reporting-mermaid-purse-sightings-2/

Hi friends! Our website is currently down for a bit of maintenance, so for the moment please feel free to submit and purse sightings here via our DMs 🦈🥚 Happy beachcombing! 🌊

Merry Fishmas, lovely friends of Marine Dimensions! We hope that your holidays are filled with family, friends, fish & good food. 🥧🎄❄️

If you go on any wintery beach walks & find any shark or skate eggcases, we would love if you could submit your sightings to us here, to be added to Ireland's national mermaids' purse database: https://marinedimensions.ie/purse-search-sightings-form/ 🦈🥚

Since it's the last before Christmas, we've decided to go to the North Pole for today's marine mammal - the warlus! 🦏 (yeahhhh that's a rhino emoji, the best I could do was not close with this one 😅)

There are 2 subspecies of walrus - the Atlantic and the Pacific - which spend their time in different areas of the Arctic. Walruses can live to about 40 years old in the wild and have been recorded to live to about 30 in captivity.

Both male & female walruses have tusks that they use to haul themselves out of the water and onto sea ice. They also use their tusks for keeping breathing holes open in the sea ice, fighting with other walruses, & for defense. Male Pacific walruses can reach 3.6m long and weigh over 1,500kg (1.5 tonnes!) while females weigh about 400-1,250 kg & are about 2.5m long.

Most importantly, they make very cute stop animation pals for Buddy the Elf. 🧝‍♀️🎅

Unfortunately this week isn't a very fun post, but it's important. This week the IUCN Red List declared the Java stingaree extinct. 💔

An assessment led by Julia Constance revealed this to be the first marine fish extinction caused by humans. You can read the IUCN assessment here: https://iucnredlist.org/species/60095/229337053

Lovely little eggcase haul from Myrtleville Beach in Co Cork today!

This is Montagu's seasnail, Liparis montagui. Don't let the name confuse you - it is definitely a fish, not a snail! 🐠

This little fish can grow to a maximum length of just 12cm. They live in the northeastern Atlantic, from Ireland & the British Isles to the Barents Sea. They're a demersal (bottom-dwelling) fish that can be found up to 30m hiding under rocks or algae. 🫣

This is the common dolphin, Delphinus delphis (deilf choiteann as Gaeilge 🇮🇪 ). 🐬

They're called common dolphins because they've been sighted in every ocean and most seas outside of polar regions. They're the most commonly seen species of dolphin around the Irish coast and can be seen here all year round, with a peak in numbers between July & September.

Common dolphins are quite small, growing to around 2.5m & 200kg. They have unique colouration, with a recognisable hourglass pattern that's yellow near the head and grey towards the tail.

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This is the Greenland shark 🦈

Greenland sharks can grow up to 6.4m / 21ft long & scientists believe that they can live for up to 400 years!

They're in a family of sharks known as "sleeper sharks", which are named as such because they are incredibly slow swimmers. Because they're so slow they rely on camouflage to catch their prey, or even opt for sick, injured, or sleeping prey. 😴

Is aobhinn linn an póstaer seo! 😍

We're starting a new series on here called , because what's a better way to beat the Monday blues than with lovely pictures of marine mammals? 🐳🐬🦭

Today's is the grey seal. Grey seals are one of the 2 seal species that can be found here in Ireland. They can be found all around the coast but are most abundant along the west. Grey seal cows (females) can weigh 100-150kg and bulls (males) can weigh up to a whopping 300kg!

Right now it's breeding season for the grey seal (Sept-Dec in Irish waters) so much of the population will be hanging around remote & undisturbed areas, often on offshore islands. Pups are born with a fluffy white coat that they shed before taking to the ocean, usually at around 6 weeks. 🐶