Question: have you discovered any other underwater creatures yet?

Thomas Doherty-Bone answered on 11 Nov 2013:

When I started my PhD, I thought I knew what-was-what in British streams, rivers and lakes. It would be fish, crayfish, caddisfly larvae, dragonfly larvae, mayfly larvae, thats it. I was wrong. I never knew that there was a species of RIVER LIMPET living in Britain – a small version of what we see in the sea. And there a small clams living in our rivers, called Pea Mussels. I knew about the endangered Freshwater Pearl Mussel, but didn’t realise there was a similarly-size (large), more common species called the SWAN MUSSEL. And there are many different crustacaceans living in our freshwaters, similar to what lives in the sea, such as freshwater amphipod shrimps, and freshwater woodlice (aka Hoglice).

From past work, I am still catching up with descriptions of new species from Africa – so far I have helped describe a new species of frog. There are other species I am still helping to describe or describe aspects of their evolution or biology, such as what the larvae of a particular species look like or how they live. Watch this space!

In the end, after we know what is living in a particular place, the task is to understand how they live, what their use is to humanity, and to be prepared in case they decline and head towards an early extinction.