Porcupine

Ever wanted to explore the shores or dive around Alderney?

Porcupine MNHS with the Alderney Wildlife Trust are proposing a unique field meeting to Alderney from 12th-19th September 2024.

Alderney is a beautiful island that is remote and right at the geographical range of many species, it is an important migration stop-over for birds and has many diverse ecosystems. Niche marine habitats exist due to the increased sea surface temperature (compared to UK!) and fast flowing tidal conditions (two extreme tidal stream bodies adjacent to the island). Marine species are therefore difficult to record in this current swept island…and so we are wanting to help get some interesting and useful records! The North West part of Alderney and the island of Burhou are a Ramsar site managed by The Alderney Wildlife Trust on behalf of the local government, the States of Alderney. Alderney is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which comprises of Sark, Herm and Guernsey.

Read more here: https://pmnhs.co.uk/pmnhs-annual-field-meetings and if interested please do contact Vivien Shaw & Winter Dotto by 8th November to plan further steps.

The Porcupine Marine Natural History Society is pleased to announce an opportunity to apply for funding for small research projects. Up to £1000 is available for small standalone projects to be undertaken during the 2024 field season. Plus for 2024 an additional £500 is available for mollusca project donated by Shelagh M Smith.

Applications will be considered for any small project which falls within the objectives of the Society. More details here: https://pmnhs.co.uk/roger-bamber-research-grant

The PMNHS conference will be held in Bournemouth from the 22nd-24th March 2024 with the theme of Novel & Natural Species & Habitats. Please save the date, spread the news and if you’re interested in presenting or speaking at this conference please contact Roger on conference@pmnhs.co.uk

A Porcupine Marine Natural History Society funded project (Roger Bamber Research Grant), aiming to produce visual identification guides of the Magelonidae for a broad range of users, has now been completed. The first of these guides entitled ‘Collecting Shovel Head Worms on the Shore’ was published in PMNHS Bulletin 18 in Autumn 2022 (Taylor & Mortimer, 2022), and supplementary guides on identification of UK and European species have now been completed. This set of guides aims to provide clarity for those identifying shovel head worms, a polychaete group for which identification based on morphological characters has been made difficult in the past by the variety of terms applied by different taxonomists. The set of guides is available to read and download on our projects page: http://pmnhs.co.uk/projects

Citation: Taylor, A. & Mortimer. K. 2023. An essential guide to Magelonidae, UK and European species. Porcupine Marine Natural History Society. http://pmnhs.co.uk/projects

 Autumn Field Trip to Cornwall 29^th September – 1^st October – see more information here http://pmnhs.co.uk/pmnhs-annual-field-meetings

Matt Green has created this short video showing what the Porcupine Marine Natural History Society do and how to join! Click on the play button below.

To download please click on the link above or the three dots in the upper right hand corner of the box.

The Roger Bamber Research Grant is now open and accepting applications for the 2023 field season. More information here.

We’re back in person for our annual conference in 2023 and we warmly invite you to come along! This conference will be held in Bangor, North Wales at Bangor University on the weekend of the 18th and 19th March and will be preceded by a field meeting on Friday 17th at the Menai Strait. Put the dates in your diary, we will be releasing more information and how to book your place soon.