Mark Douglas Norman is a

marine biologist Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others th ...

living in southern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, where he works through the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

and

Museum Victoria Museums Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum. It also manages the Royal Exhibition Building and a storage facili ...

. For over a decade, Norman has been working exclusively with

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head ...

s and he is one of the leading scientists in the field, having discovered over 150 new species of

octopus An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttle ...

es. The best known of these is probably the

mimic octopus The mimic octopus (''Thaumoctopus mimicus'') is a species of octopus from the Indo-Pacific region. Like other octopuses, it uses its chromatophores to disguise itself with its background. However, it is noteworthy for being able to impersonate a ...

. Mark Norman is the author of ''Cephalopods: A World Guide'', a book published in 2000 containing over 800 colour photographs of cephalopods in their natural habitat.

References

Australian marine biologists Teuthologists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{Biologist-stub