Everybody of course loves penguins and seals, who are the most famous Antarctic animals. But there are a lot of other animals that don't get as much attention. They are often small or live deep underwater, so they don't get nearly as much attention as the big, cute animals like penguins. But I think these small and unknown organisms are the most interesting to learn about!
This year we are working at Escudero with a lot of different scientists who study these small organisms. When we have time, we show each other our super cool animals under the microscope so that we all get to enjoy learning about them! I've met some cool critters in the lab.
I have been able to meet some fish larvae. This icefish larvae is my favorite, because of its large fins. Icefish only live in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. They are a unique species because they do not have hemoglobin in their blood, so their blood is colorless! They don't need the hemoglobin to help carry oxygen in their blood because the cold waters around Antarctica tend to have a lot of dissolved oxygen.
Another cool organism I learned about is called a chiton. (Pronounced in English like kye-ton.) These are mollusks that live on rocks in the intertidal areas of oceans. They are covered in plates that protect them like armor. The plates are partially overlapped so that they can bend and flex as they move over uneven rocks. Chitons look like underwater roly-polies!
The cool thing I learned about chitons is that their shells have a bunch of sensory organs under their shells to sense light and dark. Some of them have ocelli which act like eyes. So, chiton shells are covered with thousands of eyes! Like other mollusks, they have a radula, which is a tongue-like structure in their mouth covered with teeth to scrape algae off of rocks. Chitons' teeth on their radula are coated in magnetite, which means their teeth are made of magnetic iron!
Chitons range in size, but the ones being collected here at Escudero are very small. Here are Cecelia's hands as she was putting the chiton in place on the microscope. The chiton is in between her fingers on her left hand.
We also shared some of our soil organisms with everyone. Everyone was excited to be able to see one of the most adorable soil organisms: a tardigrade! Here is the tardigrade that we found living in the soils of our transplant experiment:
Tardigrades live everywhere around the world. In soils, they live in the water that surrounds the grains of soil. They also live in moss and other plants. They are INCREDIBLY resilient. They can survive not only the extreme cold here in Antarctica, but also extreme heat, pressure, radiation, dehydration... even the vacuum of space! Many of the other scientists here had never seen a Tardigrade in person before, so they were excited to be able to see one in person.
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