A special visitor flew into Aberdeen on Thursday hoping to spark a romance at a Scottish aquarium.

Togo, a one-year-old male harbour seal, arrived at Aberdeen Airport at lunchtime from the Fisheries and Maritime Museum in Esbjerg, Denmark.

The young seal was escorted on the flight by St Andrews Aquarium general manager John Mace who is hoping to pair him up with a 20-year-old female at the Fife centre. 

Due to dwindling seal numbers in the UK, the aquarium was forced to appeal to other nations to provide them with a suitable breeding animal. 

Mr Mace said: "It's been a great success and we're just ready for our second leg of the journey down to St Andrews where he'll be introduced to his mate Laurel.

"Nowadays you can't go to the wild and get common seals anymore because they are in great decline in British waters, they are declining by 10% each year.

"Over in Denmark and Holland their numbers are increasing, but we had to acquire a captive-bred seal.

New Mate

The crew at the St Andrews Aquarium have been frantically searching for a mate for Laurel after their male seal was lost in a bad storm in March, 2010.

Togo was succesfully released at the St Andrews Aquarium on Thrusday evening where he was welcomed to his new home.

Mr Mace now hopes this will mark the start of a beautiful friendship for the pair.

He added: "A year-and-a-half ago we had a huge storm that destroyed much of the front of the aquarium and we lost our male seal who was washed out to sea.

"Laurel has been left alone and we desperately wanted to acquire a baby seal for her but we couldn't do that in the UK so we had to go further afield to Denmark

"This, I hope, will be a fantastic bonding for the two seals and I can see a long future for them both."