By Jan Strugnell, British Antarctic Survey I am a molecular phylogeneticist at Cambridge University (funded by a Lloyd’s Tercentenary Foundation Fellowship) and I am investigating the molecular evolutionary history of Antarctic and deep sea octopus. I am therefore on board to sample any octopus we catch in our trawls for later DNA sequencing and also to preserve them for later investigation and identification. Specifically I am using octopus as model organisms to test the hypothesis that the Antarctic has acted as a centre for evolutionary innovation and radiation and as a source of taxa that have invaded the deep sea. I am also interested in investigating how past glaciation in Antarctica has effected octopus speciation, and also at the effect of the Antarctic Circumpolar...