The advent of new technologies has enabled important advances in understanding animal evolution, with many long-standing paradigms overturned in recent decades. However, the key to many of these advances has been the discovery of previously unknown taxa. Exploration of the deep sea and polar waters has revealed a suite of intriguing marine animals, which have allowed new insights into animal phylogeny. Here I will outline three remarkable discoveries, 1) a dwarf male bone-eating worm that grew into a giant, 2) a plethora of chemical diversity in an Antarctic nudibranch slug, and 3) placing a simple but mysterious flatworm in the tree of life. These three examples demonstrate how much there is to discover in our oceans, and explores the evolutionary implications these discoveries may have.
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