Volunteer finds curly sea creature in first-of-its-kind sighting for UK. See it
Walking along the southern coast of the United Kingdom, a woman scanned the shore for marine life. A curly purple sea creature caught her attention — and for good reason.
It turned out to be a first-of-its-kind sighting.
Charlotte Cumming visited Prisk Cove, Cornwall, in September to volunteer for Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s annual citizen science research event, known as Shoresearch Week, the organization said in a Sept. 15 news release.
“I have travelled down to Cornwall to take part in Shoresearch Week annually since 2019,” Cumming said in the release. “Prisk Cove is one of my favourite shores and, as ever, it was low tide and I was looking through the seaweeds along a reef when this little nudibranch caught my eye.”
The curly purple sea slug measured less than an inch and looked vaguely familiar to Cumming, she said.
“It’s quite difficult to see the back of the camera underwater in bright sunlight, so I took a few shots and thought no more of it,” Cumming said. “It wasn’t until later that evening when I was looking at the photos on a computer screen, that I realised it was in fact something I’d never seen before.”
Cumming shared the photos with the event organizers and later a marine biologist who identified the animal as Spurilla neapolitana, a species of sea slug “usually found in much warmer climates,” the trust said.
Spurilla neapolitana sea slugs vary in color from “pink to orange” and are “known for the flattened, long, thick outgrowths on its body (which give rise to its French common name, limace à bigoudis, roughly translated as ‘hair curler slug’),” the organization said.
The species is primarily found in the Caribbean and Mediterranean but has been seen further north more recently. Cumming’s photos are the first record of the species in the UK, the organization said.
“Charlotte (Cumming) is one of our most dedicated volunteers, and her incredible attention to detail led to this fantastic discovery,” Matt Slater, a marine conservation officer with the organization, said in the release.
“We had an unusually warm summer and oceanic currents would have delivered this animal here as a larvae which settled and has now reached adulthood,” Slater said. “The fact that this species has been found so far north of its usual range may be another sign that warming seas are influencing the distribution of marine animals.”
Cumming shared more photos of the curly sea slug in a Sept. 11 Instagram post, saying she was “buzzing.”
“It’s incredibly exciting to see nudibranchs on the shore, and to discover a species new to the UK is a real thrill,” she said in the release. “Five consecutive days of shore surveys is hard work, but it is one of the highlights of my year!”
Prisk Cove is in Helford, Cornwall, along the southwestern coast of the UK and a roughly 300-mile drive southwest from London.
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 8:01 AM with the headline "Volunteer finds curly sea creature in first-of-its-kind sighting for UK. See it."
