Author: Derrick Lester
Derrick Lester is a professor and editor at indeep-project.org. His academic career has been molded by a single, enduring obsession: the sea and all life in it. Drawing from marine biology, oceanography, and the kind of hard-won field knowledge that only comes from spending significant time on and under the water, Derrick's writing has the depth of a scholar thanks to his years of research and teaching experience. His writing delves into the science of marine life with the inquisitiveness of someone who has never fully moved past the wonder of what exists beneath the surface. Derrick hopes to introduce readers to a world that encompasses over 70% of the planet and is, in many respects, still largely unexplored through his contributions to indeep-project.org.
A small group of marine biologists has been working on a project that hardly anyone discusses for more than ten years, somewhere in a quiet corner of the internet. They are giving things names. cataloging them. constructing, relentlessly and slowly, a record of the creatures that inhabit the areas of the ocean that virtually no human will ever travel to. Launched in December 2012 as a subset of the broader World Register of Marine Species, the project is known as the World Register of Deep-Sea Species, or WoRDSS for short. It doesn’t appear glitzy. To be honest, it appears to…