Peter Hayward began his career as a scientific assistant at the Natural History Museum, where he was introduced to his lifelong specialism, marine bryzoa or sea-mats. He read zoology with geology at Reading University, thence to University of Wales, Swansea as research student, gaining PhD in population biology and taxonomy of sea-mats. He is now a senior lecturer at the university, and authority on bryzoa worldwide from Antarctic to coral reefs. Author with Professor John Ryland of four volumes on marine bryzoa in Linnaean Society Synopses series. Co-ordinator of the popular Collins Pocket Guide to the Seashore, co-editor and contributor to the Handbook of the Marine Fauna of north-west Europe (1995), as well as the Naturalists' Handbooks on seaweed and sandy shore habitats. Zoological editor of Journal of Natural History.