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By collecting over 200 new shark and ray teeth from Mukurmatia and Itamundia, researchers were able to identify several species previously unrecorded in India, including some entirely new to the Miocene deposits of the subcontinent.

After a record number of proposals focused on sharks, this year’s meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) ended with new protections for basking and white sharks, reduced catch limits for South Atlantic shortfin makos, and procedural advances for enforcing shark measures. For the seventeenth year, efforts to strengthen ICCAT’s shark finning ban were thwarted.

In mid-October, Mexico announced long-awaited national bans that prohibit the capture, retention, and trade of five groups of threatened Atlantic sharks, signaling a long-overdue step toward compliance with global conservation standards.

Oceanic manta rays are able to dive to well beyond 1km deep, and now it seems that once away from shallow coastal waters they rely on this ability for orientation and long-range navigation.

Title: Survival Purse Photographer: Ralph Pace, USA Location: Monterey Bay, California, USA Description: Battling strong currents, Ralph Pace captured this image of a swell shark egg case, revealing a glowing embryo, complete with gill slits and a yolk sac. Swell sharks depend on kelp to lay their leathery eggs, making them vulnerable to kelp forest loss. Researchers believe Monterey Bay's kelp has declined by more than 95 per cent in the past 34 years.

A new shark species, the West Australian Lantern Shark, has been discovered in the deep sea off the north-western coast of Australia.

A 3m sawfish, previously thought to be extinct since there had been no recorded sightings of the species in 26 years, was found at the Birha River mouth, about 90km from the East London coast in South Africa, on Friday, 19 September. The find also has experts in orca predation interested, because it appears something took a big bite out of the fish before it stranded.

Volunteers who have been helping scientists to understand more about our oceans said connecting with nature had transformed their lives.

The research, conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tested products from supermarkets, fish markets and online retailers. Astonishingly, 93% of the samples were either falsely labeled or so vaguely described that buyers had no way of knowing the species they were eating. Only one item carried an accurate, species-specific label.