Ellie Maynard

Spurilla neapolitana were first recorded in the UK in September 2025. I saw one, and then four more, for the first time today in Falmouth!
we also saw two Babakina anadoni, first recorded in the UK in 2023.
Both species have pushed their distributions northwards by arriving in Cornwall.

🌊 How do seafloor activities like bottom trawling affect the ocean’s carbon cycle—and climate policy?

🎧 In our latest #PolicyPod, we speak with Southampton’s @profbenthos.bsky.social & Prof. Susan Gourvenec about the NERC-funded C-Floor project.

🔗 Listen: buff.ly/rldAJt3

never a dull moment running the ID station at the rockpool project! these two nudis were firm favourites at the castle beach bioblitz today…

Bottlenose, Risso’s, and Common dolphins made an appearance at the two national whale & dolphin week surveys (organised by the Seawatch Foundation) that I joined in on over the last two weekends. Lizard point & Sennen Cove also turned the weather on - couldn’t ask for much more!

Made it to Scarborough for Ocean & Coastal Futures’ #ReMeMaRe25, I’ll be at stand 24 during the poster sessions - please come and say hello!

A snow bunting, some seal pups, and maerl beds have been the wildlife highlights of the isle of skye & the highlands this week!

* please keep your distance when watching wildlife, especially nesting birds / seals, these photos were taken with lots of zoom! *

This will be an important and impactful paper on deep sea mining. 🌊

“mining impacts in the abyssal ocean will be persistent over at least decadal timeframes and communities will remain altered in directly disturbed areas, despite some recolonisation”

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

weekend wildlife highlights: two dahlia anemones, 3 grey seals (somewhere in the swell!), and a solar powered sea slug (Elysia viridis). #cornwallunderwater

Kelp forest project in West Sussex having 'remarkable results' The rewilding project off the West Sussex coast is celebrating its fourth anniversary.

Undersea rewilding initiative to restore a kelp forest in West Sussex is celebrating amazing results for marine biodiversity.

Rewilding is needed just as much at sea as on land.
www.bbc.com/news/article...

A watercolour illustration of two adult grey seals on a rock. The male is lying on the top of the rock and the female is in a banana pose below.

A watercolour image of a group of seven adult male grey seals resting on rocks. There are puffins in the illustration, shown standing on the rocks behind the seals

Happy #InternationalDayoftheSeal 🦭 To celebrate our pinniped friends here are two beautiful illustrations of grey seals from volume 1 of 'The Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland' by J.G Millais, 1904. Only 1025 copies of this volume were printed - we have no77 here safely in the rare books room

Excellent new paper in Nature explains how the horrors of land-based mining are no excuse, let alone permission for mining the deep seabed.

"...this new, complex form of mining is bound to follow a similar, if not worse, path toward poor environmental outcomes."
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
🦑🧪

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science!
We are so proud to have many incredible women working across disciplines as part of Exeter Marine. 🩵

🦑🦤🌎🌐🧪🤿🌊
#WomeninSTEM #PhDSky #AcademicSky

a crowned aeolis (Facelina auriculata)!

Why we need to transform the Arctic Ocean into a North Pole marine reserve Explorer Pen Hadow is campaigning for a North Pole marine reserve to protect the Arctic’s peoples, its species and its natural landscape.

How is Arctic wildlife is changing in the face of the climate crisis? ❄️

Our recent article in The Conversation (in collaboration with our partners at the 90 North Foundation), provides insight into action needed to protect biodiversity in the Arctic Ocean.

🌎🦤🧪🦑
theconversation.com/why-we-need-...

👋🏼 I’m Ellie, recent MSc Marine Environmental Management grad & currently a research assistant at the University of Exeter, Cornwall. Particularly interested in historical ecology, blue carbon, & cornish marine wildlife.

When my scientist hat isn’t on: firefly sailor, rockpooler & book-reader!