I need a bryozoan cyphonautes expert! I’m stuck on a regularly appearing cyphonautes and comparative photos on the internet are lacking. If I can ID it, I can get some photos out there! #marineplankton

A Spionidae larva (polychaete) under UV light. So pretty! #marineplankton 🦑

A lovely afternoon stroll on the beach.

I’m all ready for my presentation for World Microscopy Day tomorrow!

I call this diatom ‘the sweetie wrapper’ because of how it twists. Helicotheca tamesis. Lovely. #marineplankton 🦑

Yesterday, whilst driving on the M25, I mentioned the high number of arseholes driving. So, from the passenger seat, my husband @jbeston.dev drew me one. Honest to god, I laughed all the way back to Norfolk just thinking about it!

Yay! It’s rhubarb crumble season!

Trieres chinensis, a nice and large diatom that’s a pleasure to photograph! #marineplankton 🦑

The new Plankton Project website it LIVE! At the very least, just check out the adorable animation on the home page 🥹. Link in our bio. Thanks to @big-pixel.com for all your hard work! #citizenscience #marineplankton #scicomm 🦑

It’s Friday, and the cat is determined to get some kip on a narrow bit of shelf because why not.

Yesterday, me and the hubs @jbeston.dev dug a 4 metre trench and planted 60 native hedge plants. We both conclude we were not built for manual labour.

The sock puppets of the plankton are back! This is the larva of a sand mason worm (Lanice conchilega) and it’s so adorable!! They make little tubes which they reach out of to grab food from their surroundings. #marineplankton #zooplankton

New study reveals how tiny marine algae survive phosphorus starvation. Diatoms are responsible for around 40% of marine primary production - fuelling food webs, supporting biodiversity and helping regulate our climate. But what happens when a vital nutrient like phosphorus runs low?

So many ladybirds in my mama’s garden today!

Spionida (order) polychaete eggs and trochophores are really quite distinctive, with a sort of lattice-effect membrane going on. Excellent style choice! #marineplankton #zooplankton #polychaete

I’m totally a Copepod!

This little earthling isn’t worrying. Just living in the moment. We could take hints from them.

How utterly adorable is this gastropod veliger larva?! I’ve never seen one in my samples with such large vela. Stunning! Vid in the comments. #marineplankton #zooplankton #gastropod

Who knew spider plant flowers were so pretty!? (Clue: not me).

I’ve not seen these beauties for ages! Fingers crossed I’ll see some this year.

How gorgeous are these Hydrozoa medusae?! These are a first for me - medusae from the family Rathkeidae. You see the bulbous bits inside the bell? They’re little buds of new medusae! These hydroids can asexually reproduce in this way. How cool is that!! #marineplankton 🦑

A lovely diatom, Petrodictyon gemma. #marineplankton 🦑 #diatoms

My first ever Dinophysis sp. dinoflagellate! I believe this is Dinophysis acuta. #marineplankton #dinoflagellate 🦑

Tonight’s movie is a classic, The Fugitive. Whenever I think of The Fugitive, I think of a photoshoot I did with the lovely fellas of The Xcerts (look closely at the photo to see why). Back in the days when I did arty stuff with cameras.

Many worms go through a planktonic larval stage, and in this case, the spaghetti worm is quite similar in form to its post-metamorphosis adult The last 8 seconds shows an adult. Larval footage: Okinawa. Adult: Florida #spaghettiworm #blackwaterdiving #kumejima #okinawa #blackwater

Jellyfish baby! This stage is called an ephyra, and this is what jellyfish look like after they’ve popped off their polyp (strobilation)! I’m pretty sure this is a moon jelly (Aurelia aurita) and I’d love to have someone confirm (or deny) this. #marineplankton 🦑

This week’s UV copepods! I swear these colours are getting wilder every week. #marineplankton 🦑

Who else is watching the #artemis launch?

This Synchaeta sp. rotifer honoured me with staying still long enough so I could film it close up! #marineplankton 🦑

Screw it. I’m getting in my pyjamas.

My sample this weekend was full of debris and sediment, so I wanted to see what it looked like under UV! Absolutely gorgeous and quite a difference to the muddy gunk under white light. All the little red dots? Diatoms! Mainly Trieres mobiliensis/regia. #marineplankton 🦑

A Harpacticoida copepod from my latest plankton sample. #marineplankton 🦑

Thanks for all the interest in the special #veliger I posted a few days ago. Because of all the curiosity, here’s a few more of the interesting veligers from 2 weeks ago off Bali’s NE coast. Veliger is the term for an early life stage of #marine #snail - before it settles onto the seafloor.

I had some cracking organisms in my sample yesterday. Can’t wait to share! #marineplankton

Hello cutie squish squash Spionidae larva! A gorgeous little polychaete (bristle worm) larva from last week’s sample. #marineplankton 🦑

Whatever the copepods in last week’s sample were eating, I want some! Instant club wear! Photographed using UV light. #marineplankton 🦑

Son currently info dumping about Ancient Greece and Rome. There are worse topics!

Today’s task - try identifying ascidian larvae beyond ‘ascidian larvae’ #marineplankton 🦑

Season 7 of the x-files is hella weird.

Lots and lots of Trieres mobiliensis/regia in my plankton sample last week. I love it when they form chains. #marineplankton 🦑

We are Hiring! - Marine Survey Technician (CPR Survey) We are looking to recruit a Marine Survey Technician who will play a central role in ensuring our CPR fleet and associated equipment remain safe, functional, and ready for deployment.

I was just holding up a packaged defrosted turkey to look at the cooking instructions, and raw turkey juice dripped IN MY EYE!

Last week I saw my first ascidian (sea squirt) egg of the year. This week I observed my first larva of the year! I’m looking forward to seeing many more as the water warms up. #marineplankton 🦑

Just one lonely bivalve larva in my sample last week. #marineplankton 🦑

All my Acartia have been sorted, measured and added to the Norfolk Plankton Image Library. If you’re interested in this dataset let me know! 2023 - current, Norfolk Coast (various locations), A. clausi, A. bifilosa, A. discaudata. Images of over 350 specimens. All with metadata #marineplankton 🦑

The largest and most beautiful #veliger I’ve ever seen! Shot last week off Bali, far offshore, on scuba, at night, out over the deep abyss.

This is super cool!! This is a kind of ciliate called a suctoria (this one happens to be Acineta sp.) and it’s sucking up the contents of this egg! You can see it consuming the mush on the left hand side of the ‘martini glass’ (timelapse) #marineplankton 🦑

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#plankton sample teaming with nauplius larvae, copepods and cladocera. On the bottom of the jar #cyanobacteria #freshwater #citizenscience

Rave worm! What a gorgeous display this polychaete worm’s setae is giving under UV light! #marineplankton 🦑