Two separate sightings, two years apart, of the mimic octopus Thaumoctopus mimicus Norman & Hochberg, 2005 are reported from the Inhambane Province of southern Mozambique within the protected waters of the Vilanculos Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary. Individuals were encountered in May 2020 and 2022 in shallow waters, at a depth of less than 30 cm. Both individuals were fully exposed moving along a sandy substrate at the water's edge in a tidal flat. These represent the first documented sightings of T. mimicus in Mozambique, confirming the occurrence of the species along the eastern coast of Africa and extending this species' known range west from the Arabian Sea and south from the Red Sea.

Warren's sixgill sawshark, Pliotrema warreni, is confirmed for the first time in Namibian waters, from two specimens. One specimen was collected by fisheries observers on a vessel fishing in southern Namibian waters in March 2010. The other was found dead on a beach in central coastal Namibia, in August 2014. The West African catshark, Scyliorhinus cervigoni, is documented for the first time in northern Namibia, from a specimen recorded during surveys of chondrichthyan bycatch on a commercial bottom trawler. This extends the species' range southwards from Angola. Records of bull sharks Carcharhinus leucas are also documented, providing a better understanding of their distribution in Namibia. Several anglers have reported catching bull sharks in the Kunene River (from the riverbank on the Namibian side) and just south of the river mouth, along the Namibian coast.

Photographs of a single shark specimen (1040 mm in total length) caught in the Oyodo River estuary, Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan, by a recreational angler and uploaded to the social networking service Facebook, were identified as a juvenile specimen of the bull shark Carcharhinus leucas. The photographic record, now deposited in the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History collection, represents the northernmost record of this species in the western Pacific Ocean. Although C. leucas is known to utilize primarily tropical estuarine habitats as nursery grounds, a few reports exist regarding the utilization of subtropical and warm-temperate latitude estuaries, as in this case. From the perspectives of species conservation and shark-bite mitigation in warm-temperate latitudes, further information on C. leucas occurrence around its northern distribution limit is required.

A recent survey of The Canyons Marine Conservation Zone provided noteworthy records of several crustacean species, which are presented here. The geographic or bathymetric ranges of several species are considerably extended, while the genus Rhachotropis, which has not previously been reported from British waters, is represented by two species. Other species that were previously only known in British waters from very few, often historical, records are also reported.

Pangolins are some of the most overexploited but least studied mammals. The giant pangolin Smutsia gigantea is the largest of the eight pangolin species, measuring up to 180 cm in length and weighing up to 40 kg. It is a nocturnal, solitary species that occurs at low densities and little is known regarding its biology and ecology. It is distributed widely across the rainforests and forest savannah mosaics of equatorial Africa but its exact range extent is unknown. Apart from a single record in Kenya predating 1971, the eastern limit of its range was thought only to extend to central Uganda and western Tanzania. Here we present three spatially separate records confirming the presence of this species in Kenyan Afromontane forests. The three records are c. 120 km apart and c. 500 km east of the nearest confirmed giant pangolin population in Uganda. These records represent a significant range extension for the species and highlight the biodiversity and conservation importance of the Afromontane forests of western Kenya.

We report two separate sightings of the ornate eagle ray Aetomylaeus vespertilio (Bleeker, 1852) in the Bazaruto Seascape of southern Mozambique. In May 2021, a single individual was encountered at a depth of 30 m during an in-water survey in the Bazaruto Archipelago National Park. Another solitary individual was documented ~55 km away during an aerial survey in the Vilanculos Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary three days later. These represent the first documented sightings of A. vespertilio in the Inhambane Province of Mozambique, confirming the presence of the species in the region and extending the known range northward along the south-east African coastline. Given the rarity of reported sightings, additional records are particularly valuable for these threatened and elusive rays in order to expand current knowledge of their distribution and range.

Current literature considers that Nasolamia velox has a limited distribution along the coastline of the Eastern Pacific with sporadic sightings in the Galapagos Archipelago. This study provides evidence of the occurrence of this species at the Revillagigedo Archipelago (18°99′186″N 112°08′44″W), Mexico, using acoustic telemetry and videos taken from 2014 to 2016. We report here movements from a coastal location (National Park Cabo Pulmo) to a group of oceanic islands (Revillagigedo Archipelago) by one single individual, supporting the idea of the potential connectivity of sharks between the Gulf of California and the Revillagigedo Archipelago. This report extends the known distribution of N. velox to 400 km off the mainland coast of the Americas, thereby increasing the knowledge of the distribution of a species commonly reported in fishery landings of the Eastern Pacific.

Recent observations of unusual mass stranding and mortality of two Indian Ocean crustacean species, the swimming crab Charybdis smithii and the mantis shrimp Natosquilla investigatoris, are documented and analysed. Strandings of C. smithii were observed for the first time in the equatorial Indian Ocean, the main area of its pelagic distribution. Strandings of mantis shrimps are reported from throughout the western Indian Ocean; occurrences of mass stranding in the Maldives Archipelago mark an extension of the known range of N. investigatoris into the central Indian Ocean. Mortality of crabs probably represents a ‘catastrophic event’. In contrast, mantis shrimp strandings, which were always associated with a sudden increase of its biomass (‘blooms’), are apparently post-reproduction mortalities indicating potential semelparity for this species.

The roughbar frogfish, Fowlerichthys avalonis, is one of the largest frogfish residents of rocky bottoms, at depths of 10 to 300 m, inhabiting the eastern Pacific. It is an endemic species with a geographic range along the continental shelf from the southern United States to Chile. This study provides evidence for the occurrence of the species at Socorro Island (18°46′19″N 110°53′43″W), Revillagigedo Archipelago, Mexico, obtained from videos taken in a submersible at a depth of 66 m. This report extends the known distribution of F. avalonis to 400 km off the mainland coast of the Americas, and represents the fourth species of the family Antennariidae to be reported for the Revillagigedo Archipelago.

A single specimen of the African spadefish, Tripterodon orbis, was landed in a gill net operating off Visakhapatnam on 13 December 2013. The morphometric and meristic characters of the recorded specimen are described and discussed herein. This is the first occurrence of the species from the north-east coast of India, exhibiting an extension in distribution from the southern to the northern region, along the Bay of Bengal.

The megamouth shark, Megachasma pelagios, is a rare and poorly studied shark. In this paper, the first record of the megamouth shark is reported for Sri Lanka. The shark, a juvenile estimated at 180 cm in total length, was caught in a gillnet in close proximity (<92 km) to the Negombo fisheries harbour (7°12′11.67″N 79°49′44.35″E).

Two chaenopsid fishes, Neoclinus chihiroe and Neoclinus lacunicola, were collected from Sadogashima Island, the Sea of Japan. The collected specimens represent the northernmost records of the two species and the first voucher specimens from the Sea of Japan. Morphological information and colour photographs, including underwater photos, of these specimens were provided. Additional photographic evidence from Tobi-shima Island, ~100 km north-north-east of Sadogashima Island, further extended the northernmost record of Neoclinus lacunicola.

Gymnothorax prolatus is recorded for the first time from the Indian Ocean on the basis of four specimens collected in the Bay of Bengal off India and one from the Arabian Sea off Pakistan. These records extend the range of the species from Taiwan to the north-western Indian Ocean.

The presence of the fish species Enneapterygius pusillus and confirmation of Parablennius opercularis occurrence in the Kuwaiti waters of the northern Arabian Gulf regions are both reported here. One adult specimen of each species was photographed in the Qit at Binaya patch reef off Al Khiran, in southern Kuwait waters. The pixie triplefin record is a new ichthyofaunal record for the northern Arabian Gulf.

We report the occurrence of the sponge-dwelling snapping shrimp Synalpheus dardeaui (Decapoda: Alpheidae) for the first time from Porto Seguro (Bahia, Brazil) and record an additional sponge host for the species, Ircinia cf. strobilina. Synalpheus dardeaui was previously known from Florida and some localities in the Caribbean Sea. Therefore, the present finding represents the first record of the species in the south-western Atlantic, extending its southern distribution limit by a latitude of 28° from Curaçao (12°N) to Porto Seguro (16°S). Variations between the Brazilian and Florida–Caribbean materials are discussed and illustrated.

The cookiecutter shark, Isistius brasiliensis, is confirmed for the first time from the eastern North Pacific Ocean. The shark, a female 432 mm in total length, was caught in a sablefish pot at a depth of 1132 m off San Nicolas Island, California, USA (32°59′05″N 120°25′99″W).

Eight species of alpheid shrimps are reported for the first time from the coral reef systems off Mexico's northern Yucatan Peninsula (Alacranes, Madagascar and Serpiente Reefs). These species are: Alpheus immaculatus; Alpheus paraformosus; Alpheus punctatus; Parabetaeus hummelincki; Salmoneus depressus; Synalpheus chacei; Synalpheus dominicensis; and Synalpheus elizabethae. The geographical ranges of these species are extended into the southern Gulf of Mexico; most of them are recorded from Mexican territorial waters for the first time. Brief notes on their ecology and taxonomy are provided. Six species are illustrated by colour photographs.

A spinetail devilray (Mobula japanica) was recorded for the first time in the western waters of Australia. The beach-stranded individual was observed in March 2013 on the southern coast of Western Australia (latitude 34.8811°S, longitude 118.4079°E). This is the southernmost record of this species in Australian waters. Previous Australian records of this species have been restricted to the east coast, where sightings have been within the latitudinal range of 14–33°S. The individual observed in Western Australia was a mature male, with a disc width of 257 cm. The occurrence coincided with the maximum recorded summer sea surface temperature (22.0°C) along the southern coast of Western Australia and an abnormally strong flow in the Leeuwin Current for that time of year.

The velvet dogfish, Zameus squamulosus, is a poorly known deep water shark, known from the Atlantic, Indian, western, central and south-eastern Pacific Oceans. In this paper, the first record of the velvet dogfish, caught from the eastern North Pacific is reported. The shark, a male 533 mm in total length, was caught by bottom trawl at a depth of 770.7 m off Long Beach, California (33°43′15″N 118°32′14″W), USA.

This work presents records of two endobenthic species of sea cucumber (Holothuroidea: Echinodermata) not previously reported in Canadian waters. Thyone inermis (Dendrochirotida) and Labidoplax buskii (Apodida) were collected south-west of Nova Scotia (eastern Canada) in 2009 in Georges and Crowell Basins in the upper 2 cm of muddy seafloor at upper bathyal depths (240–370 m). Both species are of small size, 3.7–8 mm and 5–8 mm long, respectively.