Josh Pickett

    The Midlands Mission Species Hunting with Jack Perks & Leigh Clifton   For a few months myself, and the one-and-only 'fish twitcher' , Jack Perks, had been planning a species hunting trip in his neck of the woods, Nottingham. Quite frankly, Jack had been overstaying his welcome on several occasions when he'd come to crash at mine in Cornwall; drinking my rum, scoffing our pasties, and ravishing our women—admittedly, I seldom got time off work, so I can only assume this is what went on 9–5. It was Jack's turn this time, and luckily, I was only interested in the fishing!  The (rather insane) plan was, to catch a 13-hour, overnight coach in mid-Cornwall with 2 changes, after work on Tuesday; I don't drive myself, so this probably screamed desperation to catch a few fish to you, reader... I know, I know; that can't actually be the case — but I assure you it is. We had planned all manner of fishing, so in a successful effort to be compact, and a fruitless one...

  Read the full review for free on the British Wildlife website, here .  My review is overwhelmingly positive, although I do flag some very minor errors, which I'll note here ( the author has amended these for the e-book, and future printed editions ): Shore Clingfish Lepadogaster lepadogaster is likely absent from Britain. Cornish Sucker  Lepadogaster purpurea is instead more widespread here, and not restricted to Cornwall. A photo of Small-Headed Clingfish Apletodon dentatus in its reef markings was used for Two-spotted Clingfish Diplecogaster bimaculata. Two-spotted Goby is now Pomatoschistus flavescens, not Gobiusculus flavescens. The genus  Pomatoschistus has been moved out of the family Gobiidae (typical gobies) to Oxudercidae (estuarine gobies, mudskippers & allies). Black-faced Blenny Tripterygion delaisi is a true blenny. They belong to the tripterygiid (triplefin) blenny family, which is nestled within the suborder regarded as the ‘true’ blenni...

For this article, my primary reference on where taxa are situated is Phylogenetic Classification of Living and Fossil Ray-Finned Fishes (Actinopterygii) by Near & Thacker, 2024, which I regard to be the most   authoritative r evision of actinopterygiians at the time of this article's publication.    Who wants to be a Blennionaire? An overview of the true blenny families, with a guide to British species.   I can't think of many questions where the potential answers could be 'true' or 'false' without actually being a proper 'true or false' question, but when talking of blennies, it makes a pretty good case. The answer of course is "A"; the triplefins are one of six families of true blennies, unlike, let's say the Vivaparous blenny, which is not a blenny at all (and isn't even vivaparous) , and would informally be considered a false blenny —what a poser. So what exactly are blennies? What makes a blenny true? How many species are ...