The last time we went out for lobster in Lyme Bay we found a dogfish in the creel. A type of shark that roamed the seas before dinosaurs existed, a dogfish won’t slice your leg off the way a Great White might, but it is very scratchy to hold onto, thanks to its denticles, the teeth that cover its entire body (Speedo, the swimsuit company, is trying to imitate its streamlining qualities).
Ours was about two foot long and snappy, with a wide rictus mouth, and it rubbed us raw thrashing about before we dropped it back in the water. While its 400-million- year-old contemporaries are embedded in the Jurassic cliffs where Mary Anning found ichthyosaurs, dogfish can still be sampled in fish and chip shops as rock salmon, or huss.
At current rates of attrition, though, even huss may be off the menu.
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