Dogfish (Scyliorhinus canicula) The dogfish lives and feeds on the seabed, in the shallow coastal waters, like most catsharks  it's nocturnal sleeping on the sandy seabed during the day and feeds mainly at night on a mixed diet of crustaceans and polychaete worms, plus young small round fish like cod, bass etc. plus flatfish young that stay in shallow waters for protection and food until their big enough to move to deeper waters.

Inset bottom left of the picture is a mermaids purse. The female dogfish will lay about 10 eggs called mermaids purses per month during the breeding season from November to July. They are laid about two at a time in areas of quite strong currents with the capsules carefully attached by long elastic threads to seaweeds or rocks. This photograph was taken at Dogfish reef on the north of Loch Long.

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Pictures by John Nicolson