A misalignment between the legislation and the effectiveness of Mediterranean fisheries management has emerged due to the status of the stocks (still largely in overfishing) and the discontent of stakeholders regarding management plans and tools that are not always recognized as appropriate to the characteristics of the concerned fisheries. Stakeholders’ involvement in management processes is one of the main pillars of the Com...

The white skate Rostroraja alba is assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as Endangered globally and is now considered rare in the Mediterranean. This species has never been recorded in Sardinian seas (central western Mediterranean), but an empty eggcase was collected on a sandy bottom off the western Sardinia coasts during the MEDiterranean International Trawl Survey (MEDITS) program in 2019. A morphom...

As far as is known, in this paper the first case of lacking of skin‐related structures (epidermis, stratum laxum , dermal denticles and teeth) in a free‐swimming elasmobranch, the blackmouth catshark, Galeus melastomus , is reported. The individual was caught by trawl in Sardinian waters (central‐western Mediterranean) in July 2019 at a depth of 500 m. Although this kind of morphological abnormality is potentially fatal, the o...

In the Mediterranean Sea, in addition to the two historically known species belonging to the Squalus genus, a third species, Squalus megalops, has been reported. Considering the high level of morphologic similarity of this species with the native species S. blainville, this study aims to evaluate the Central-Western Mediterranean spurdog population in order to test the hypothesis of the presence of two distinct species S. blai...