Exotic Creature In Antarctica Has Survived More Than 30 Ice Ages

[Judi Lynn]

Tullbergia, smaller than a sesame seed, uses its two fleshy antennae and six legs to navigate between crushing Antarctic glaciers and toxic soils. Credit: Igor Siwanowicz



Its perseverance is rewriting the history of life, and of ice, across the continent

IN BRIEF

Scientists have found a tiny animal, Tullbergia, living under rocks in Antarctica's inland mountain peaks, where nothing should survive.

Tullbergia seems to have persisted in the same place for millions of years, somehow avoiding deadly ice sheets and toxic salts.

Gene sequences from Tullbergia and other Antarctic critters may explain their survival and might rewrite the history of ice across the continent.

Ian Hogg and Byron Adams peered out the windows of their helicopter as it glided over the rocky slopes of the Transantarctic Mountains, dry peaks that rise above vast ice sheets just 600 kilometers from the South Pole. Their eyes flitted across the ledges and cliffs below. It was a sunny day in January 2018, and they were searching for landmarks that matched those described in some brief notes left by a deceased entomologist who, back in 1964, had discovered an enigmatic creature in this desolate landscape. No one had seen it since.

The Transantarctic Mountains stretch more than 3,000 kilometers across the continent, from the shoreline in the north toward the interior in the south, splitting the continent in two. The mountain chain, 100 to 200 kilometers wide, acts as a dam, holding back the vast East Antarctic ice sheet, a dome that rises 3,000 meters above sea level. Glaciers fed by that ice sheet ooze through gaps between the mountain peaks and slowly empty into lower-lying West Antarctica. Dry winds screaming off the eastern plateau keep the peaks themselves largely free of ice.

In winter, temperatures in the southern Transantarctics plunge below −40 degrees Celsius. Some of the hard, thin soils on these peaks haven't tasted appreciable amounts of water for tens to hundreds of thousands of years, allowing them to accumulate caustic salts, much like the surface of Mars. Yet despite the harsh environment, a handful of tiny animals call these mountains home. Hogg and Adams had been collecting samples since 2006, trying to learn which species live where. The species that had been discovered in 1964, however—an insectlike animal called Tullbergia mediantarctica—had so far eluded them.

More:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exotic-creature-in-antarctica-has-survived-more-than-30-ice-ages/

[htuttle]

1. Hope it doesn't get bigger

[Judi Lynn]

3. Uh, oh!

[at140]

2. America was lucky during last ice age!

There were no Americans living in the mid-west buried under miles high ice glaciers.

[Bayard]

4. I think I saw this in an episode of X-Files

[Talitha]

6. I think I might have gone out with it in high school.

[niyad]

5. KNR

[Chainfire]

7. They didn't have to go all the way to Antarctica

A very similar creature inhabits the space between DJT's ears.