Reeling rods, pulling pots and hauling nets this summer, fishermen from Greece to the U.K. discovered unexpected visitors popping their heads above the surface.

In the Aegean, it was silver-cheeked toadfish—an invasive pufferfish with powerful, prominent teeth. In the English Channel, it was the unprecedented arrival of uncommon common octopuses. And in the Adriatic, it was the aggressive and aptly named blue crab.

Across the continent’s seas and straits, warming waters and decades of overfishing are throwing marine ecosystems off kilter and sending species swimming in new directions. For the fishermen landing unfamiliar tentacled and scaled sea creatures, the novel arrivals haven’t always been welcomed on deck. 

“The fisheries I found 30 years ago were more or less the species that archeozoologists found in [archaeological] remains many thousands years back. But today, this is changing really fast,” said Anastasia Miliou, the science director at Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation, a Greek nonprofit.

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