AS love stories go it was a truly tragic affair, but at least it had a happy - if somewhat fishy - ending.

And the proof can be found at Scarborough's Sea Life and Marine Centre in the form of more than a dozen baby lumpsuckers.

When a solitary female lumpsucker called Lucy, at the sanctuary's sister attraction in Weymouth, grew heavy with eggs, marine experts scoured Europe for a suitable mate.

The only possible suitor was eventually located in Scotland, a lonely male called Lawrie, who was just turning a tell-tale pink about his fins and gills, indicating that he was ready for some serious courtship.

Lawrie was couriered 600 miles to Weymouth, and it was a case of love at first sight. Within days, Lucy had produced two large bundles of eggs, which Lawrie duly fertilised.

But in the world of the lumpsucker, it is the male who guards the eggs, and so diligent is he in performing his duty that it usually kills him.

So it was the case for Lawrie.

However, Lucy survived and is back in the ocean, free to breed again.

Their offspring also endures and the Scarborough centre has become home to many of the tiny creatures.

Just millimetres long at present, the lumpsuckers will grow to the size of a football. They get their name from a gill on their chests, with which they fasten themselves to rocks to feed on plankton washed past by the tide.