Russell B Connelly is a postgraduate researcher and marine biologist at the School of Life Sciences of the University of Essex. After completing a BSc and MRes at the University of Essex, he began a PhD at the same university, focusing on new monitoring techniques for populations of UK seahorse species.

Together with colleagues, he recently published a study in Frontiers in Marine Science describing remarkable, never-before-seen geometric clusters of nests of cryonotothenioid fish, also known as icefish. These were first filmed 2019 by the remotely operated vehicle ‘Lassie’  operating from the ship SA Agulhas II in the Western Weddell near the Sea Larsen C Ice Shelf. In this editorial, he summarizes their discovery and its importance.

QUT researchers have uncovered critical biological processes that allow corals attach to a reef in a finding that could significantly improve coral restoration efforts worldwide.

Researchers are redefining the nutritional value of prey. Studying the dynamics of sea lion predators and their prey, the researchers found that not all prey are the same — even those of similar size and weight of the same species — offering new perspectives for understanding ocean food resources.

Egyptian paleontologists have discovered the earliest known member of Dyrosauridae — a group of long-snouted, coastal and marine Crocodyliforms— in the Western Desert of Egypt. The new species, Wadisuchus kassabi, lived around 80 million years ago and bridges a crucial fossil gap in the early evolution of marine crocs. The well-preserved skull and jaws, described in The Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, reveal transitional features in the development of the dyrosaurid snout and skull adaptations. The findings point to North Africa — particularly Egypt’s Quseir Formation — as the birthplace of Dyrosauridae before their global expansion following the dinosaur extinction.

Researchers have for the first time closely tracked the fine-scale diving behaviour of two species of sea snakes that forage along the seafloor and discovered that one species performs a curious wiggle while travelling underwater.