In September 1992 a blue runner (Caranx crysos) (37 cm) was caught off Portland Harbour, Dorset, by an angler. Initially the specimen was not recognized as a rarity and it was damaged while being prepared as bait for a lobster pot. Fortunately it was retrieved and sent to the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF) laboratory at Lowestoft where it was identified. In August 1993, a second blue runner (29 cm), (see Figure 1) was hand-lined in St Ives Bay, Cornwall by Mr Astrinsky, of Penzance. It was also taken to a MAFF office, at Newlyn, for identification where one of the authors made a provisional identification before sending it to the British Marine Fishes Database at the Marine Biological Association for final verification. These two fishes are the first records of the blue runner C. crysos from British waters, and represent a northerly extension to its range.

Suspected viral erythrocytic necrosis (VEN) was detected in two specimens of the intertidal fish Mauligobius maderensis (Teleostei: Gobiidae) from Madeira, Portugal. While one host was lightly infected, the other showed intraerythrocytic cytoplasmic inclusions within all mature erythrocytes examined. The inclusions were round to oval, 0·8–2·0 μm in diameter, and most were associated with dense eosinophilic granular areas of various sizes and shapes. Up to three of these granular regions accompanied each inclusion body, but they were sometimes widely separated from it. In a number of infected erythrocytes, a granular halo was observed surrounding the nucleus. The cytoplasm enclosed by the halo often had a different refringence from that outside. None of the 120 other fishes examined from Madeira, representing 43 species of intertidal, pelagic, and deep-sea origin, had detectable infections.