Dr. Rob Blakemore has studied ‘VermEcology’ for 30 years and holds qualifications in ecology, computing and permaculture. Growing up in Africa and near the Shropshire birthplace of Charles Darwin, Rob’s interests in earthworms commenced in 1980 with a centenary tribute to Darwin’s book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms. Subsequent surveys from the Australasian tropics to sub-Antarctic and, most recently, in Japan have led to discovery and his naming of 300 taxa new to science.