My principle aim is to understand how other animals perceive their environment. By taking an approach to sensory systems which is based around visual ecology but also includes physiology, anatomy, behaviour and neural integration, I hope to decode the ‘languages’ of colour and polarisation. My focus is the marine environment, in particular reef systems and the deep-sea, examining neural function and vision in animal systems that are not the usual model systems. I am more interested in the retinal design of a mantis shrimp than a mouse and the brain design of an octopus than a rat.