Melting Antartic ice reveals new critters

[mrhnau]

Antarctic ice melt reveals exotic creatures


Neat stuff!

There were blue ice fish, with dorsal fins like ribbed fans and blood that lacks red cells, an adaptation that makes the blood more fluid and easier to pump through the animal's body, conserving energy at low temperatures.


Long-limbed sea stars, some with more than the usual five appendages, mingled with the ice fish, and groups of sea cucumbers were observed moving together, all in one direction.


The explorers also found thick settlements of fast-growing animals called sea squirts, which look like gelatinous bags, which apparently started colonizing the area only after the ice shelves collapsed.

 

[Zida'sukara]

It is nice and very interesting to learn about the new species but enough parts of the planet have already been disturbed or even distroyed by humans let's hope this will not happen here too. I am always a bit sceptical when humans discover new parts and species.

 

[Bigshadow]

That is a great article. Thanks!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Cool

 

[mrhnau]

It is nice and very interesting to learn about the new species but enough parts of the planet have already been disturbed or even distroyed by humans let's hope this will not happen here too. I am always a bit sceptical when humans discover new parts and species.

well, I can kind of understand that... its hard to measure our influence on systems like this. I seem to recall a recent scare that one of our Mars landers could have killed bacteria or something on Mars. We need to be really careful when exploring new environments...

still, I'm amazed at the discovery of extremophiles. Life constantly amazes me

 

[Ray]

Oh, oh. Now the Sierra Club is going to sue and force a stop to global warming to keep these animals from going extinct.