Pictured in Marine Life Bray after the egg find, were: Tamara Deans aquarist), Dr Patrick Collins, Silvia Goffi (general manager), Elaine Geaney (aquarist) and Mercedes Dorrian Smith (PhD student).
When the former aquarium in Bray, County Wicklow, reopened earlier this month as Marine Life, two years after its shock closure, the new owners could not have predicted that they would be blessed with a special gift from the Irish Sea in the form of a rare egg laid by a critically endangered fish – something that was last found on the east coast around 100 years ago.
Happenstance placed young student Cerys Roberts on Bray beach, on the Monday morning following the onslaught of Storm Claudia over the weekend of November 14 and 15, and while most people would have overlooked what she found, Cerys, from Wales, is a student of ecology and biodiversity at Bray Institute of Further Education, and also a marine “enthusiast”.