Although the distribution of most coastal and oceanic fishes of the seas of northern Europe is relatively well-known extensions to known range are reported with moderate frequency as vagrant specimens are found or captured and recorded. Possibly it is partly because the fish fauna is well documented, with reliable literature to permit identification, that rare or unusual fishes are quickly recognized and attempts made to identify them. Most such specimens are housed in museum or other institutional collections and thus information about them can be retrieved long after their capture. However, the circumstances of the present report which records the stranding of a white marlin T. albidus Poey, 1860 on the Lancashire coast at Morecambe Bay are somewhat unusual in that the whole specimen was eaten and the only evidence remaining are two photographs and a small piece of skin. In view of the interest of this occurrence, which represents a northward extension of the range of the species by several hundred miles, as well as the first report of its occurrence in British seas, full documentation is given here and both available photographs are reproduced.