They could have been served up as a cheap alternative to caviar but a brood of baby lumpsucker fish now has a new home at the Sea Life Centre in Brighton.

Things were not looking good for mum Lucy - females are called lumpfish - when she could not find a mate to help create her perfect family.

But in swam Lawrie, from Scotland, who was keen to become a father and help produce hundreds of babies, which are now being homed at the Brighton centre.

The lumpsucker, whose pink colours around his fins and gills showed he was ready for love, was shipped 600 miles to Lucy in Weymouth, Dorset, so he could fertilise two large bundles of eggs.

Lawrie guarded the eggs but, like many love stories, the tale has a tragic end.

Peter Jones, curator of the Sea Life Centre in Brighton, said: "Male lumpsuckers devote all their energies to guarding the eggs from potential predators and gently wafting the water round them at regular intervals to prevent it stagnating.

"They tend to stop feeding while they do this and die once the young have hatched and swum free, as was the case with Lawrie."

The Weymouth team reared hundreds of Lawrie and Lucy's babies and the Brighton centre has become one of the first aquariums to welcome some of them.

Peter said: "Lumpsucker eggs are collected from rockpools in many countries to be served up as caviar. They are a cheaper alternative to the authentic beluga sturgeon caviar.

"Everyone who has seen our newly arrived baby lumpsuckers is very happy that didn't happen to Lawrie and Lucy's eggs."

The babies are just 1in long but will grow to the size of a football.

The fish get their name from specially adapted sucker-like pelvic fins on their chests, with which they can fasten themselves to rocks enabling them to feed on plankton washed along by the tide.