Dr. Frances Dipper is an author, lecturer and independent marine consultant and has spent a lifetime happily observing and studying marine organisms the world over. A naturalist at heart, she has always loved the sea and has a passion for writing books about the ocean both for adults and for children. This has culminated recently in her major work ‘The Marine World: A Natural History of Ocean Life’. Her Dorling Kindersley children’s book, ‘Guide to the Oceans’ won the Royal Society Aventis Prize for junior Science Books in 2003. Although interested in anything that swims, slithers, glides, flaps or simply sways under water, she has a particular love of fishes and as well as writing books about them, she runs marine fish identification courses for marine consultancies and for Seasearch, a recording project for volunteer sports divers.