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South West Undersea Landscape
Washed in clear Atlantic waters, which sometimes bring visits from leatherback turtles, the undersea landscape of the South West includes many rocky reefs, pinnacles and undersea ledges covered in a close carpet of colourful living sponges, corals and sea squirts. In between are sheltered sandy bays such as Kimmeridge and Babbacombe, where cuttlefish and seahorses feed. Basking sharks often cruise offshore in the plankton stream and seagrass meadows lie in sheltered coves and estuaries. Kelp forests shelter many fish while pink sea fan corals occur from Dorset to North Devon.
This area is home to:
- Basking sharks, who find the seas around the south-west peninsula an excellent feeding ground. These gentle giants weigh up to 7 tonnes but eat only plankton.
- The largest hole in the ocean floor. Hurd Deep in the western English Channel is 50 km long and reaches a maximum depth of 172 metres.
- A unique bed of burrowing sea cucumbers off the Dorset coast which wave their tentacles in the water to catch floating fragments of food and then wipe them clean with their ‘mouths’ before retracting into the gravel.
- The 37 sea caves of Lundy, some of which have ‘beaches’ at the far end used by grey seals to give birth to their pups.
- Dense forests of pink sea fan coral in Plymouth Sound and Lyme Bay. In other places around the south-west coast, this particular coral is scattered across reefs like trees in parkland.
- Seaweed hotspots such as Kimmeridge Bay in Dorset which boasts a dazzling array of bright pink, green and iridescent-blue algae.
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Panorama
Click the numbers on the image below to find out more about the diverse range of species and habitats.
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