Saturday, January 26, 2019

What lurks beneath Antarctic ice?

The first answer, of course, is "a continent."  Get out to the huge ice shelves, though, and the sea in places goes down to 4,000m or So. This interesting article, though lacking in examples and scientific detail, recounts how Aussie scientists probed those depths and found, not only the expected collection of weird fish and invertebrates, but species that seemed to have evolved there into something a little different than their counterparts in other oceans.  That was unexpected;  although we have interesting Antarctic examples like the antifreeze-blooded fishes,  it's generally been held that warm, food-rich waters are the best places for evolution and speciation. Mother Nature springs another surprise... i'll have to look for some more detailed articles from the scientific press. 

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