The Europa Stamp Competition for the period 9th May-9th September 2024 has “Underwater Flora and Fauna as its subject. Latvia’s colourful entry shows on the left the water plant najas flexilis, now rare and threatened throughout its European range. The stamp on the right features a brown trout.
For Liechtenstein, photographs taken at the St. Katrinabrunna nature reserve in the southernmost municipality of Balzers are shown on the stamp sheet. The nature and recreation area with two ponds was created by the municipality in 1973. Endangered plant and animal species have found a habitat there. This includes the fish named “Egli”, known outside the Swiss-speaking world as the river perch. It is found in a wide variety of waters in Liechtenstein. It is easily recognisable thanks to the five to six dark transverse bands on its body and its spiny dorsal fin.
Slovenia’s issue depicts on stamp C the noble pen shell (Pinna nobilis), a Mediterranean endemic species and the largest bivalve mollusc in the Mediterranean Sea. Its shell rate growth is among the fastest of any species and its shell can reach a length of more than a metre! Today the noble pen shell is listed among critically endangered species. Stamp D has the water beetle Graphoderus bilineatus.
Gold coral, or false black coral (Savalia savaglia), is seen on this stamp produced by Montenegro. It is a rare species found in the Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic Ocean.
This set from the Isle of Man comprises six stunning stamps featuring native fish species, intricately depicted by acclaimed mosaic artist Kimmy McHarrie. In order of value you have: a herring (harenga), cod (gadus morhua), mackerel (scomber scombrus), red gunard (chelidonichthys cuculus), salmon (salmo salar) and John Dory (zeus faber).
The fish featured on Azebaijans’s offering is the humphead wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus). Also seen is the green sea turtle, an endangered species that has undergone an estimated 90 percent. population decrease over the past half century.
Gibraltar’s stamps feature the loggerhead sea turtle and two orcas.
Above is the cover picture of a Europa stamp booklet issued by Bulgaria. The fish on the cover and on the stamps below left are the brown meagre (sciaena umbra) and on the seabed a gobius. Fish on the sheet right are the striped red mullet (mullus surmuletus) and a stargazer (Uranoscopus scaber).
Post Europ has chosen the joint theme “Underwater Fauna & Flora”. Denmark’s PostNord has entitled its offering “The Breath of the Sea”, and has featured on its stamps plants found in the seas, fjords, sounds, and straits around Denmark.
Belgium’s bpost decided to put endangered marine life in the spotlight. On the stamps we see the dogfish and an eel, an endangered species in our North Sea. View of an underwater world. The pencil drawings on the sheet represent other fish species that are now under threat.
