And so seven stars would stand for elu meen, which is the Dravidian word for the Big Dipper star constellation.

Because I get to talk about one of my favorite critters, which is the Western Grebe. You haven't lived until you've seen these guys do their courtship dance.

And where the diver is, this is probably where most of the reefs of the world are now, with very few corals, algae overgrowing the corals, lots of bacteria, and where the large animals are gone.

Ukrainian diver Gennadiy Samokhin extended the cave by diving in the terminal sump to 46 m depth in 2007 and then to 52 m in 2012, setting successive world records of 2,191 m and 2,197 m respectively.

My own epiphany as a conservationist came in 1953, while a Harvard graduate student, searching for rare ants found in the mountain forests of Cuba, ants that shine in the sunlight metallic green or metallic blue, according to species, and one species, I discovered, metallic gold.