Happy Feet

Forget Happy Feet, with these guys it's 'intelligent legs'...

... invading an ocean near you soon!

When most people think of Antarctica and wildlife, Happy Feet starts playing in their heads. Despite the best efforts of Warner Brothers and the makers of the old Bluebird chips ads, the waddly birds still waddle and tap dancing is not a major pastime down on the ice. That’s OK because the wildlife we encountered on our trip had quite enough pep as it was…

Let’s begin with the skua. Skua look like giant Mollymawks and are actually the same size as Adelie penguins. At Crary labs, McMurdo they have two dead birds laid out side by side as proof. Now, the penguins don’t look all that big when they scoot your way on their bellies, but transform that animal into one with an intimidating wingspan, dive-bombing you from above and you’re in trouble. Or rather, I was. It is never a good idea to take a short cut near a pond called ‘Skua Lake’. We were warned in advance that they dive bomb the highest thing around, so holding an ice axe aloft is a good tactic. Unfortunately I had no ice axe, so waving my arms around like a devout tongues-speaker and ducking at strategic moments was the go. The closest I’ve come to the ducking and twisting maze back home was playing Kinect xbox games. Perhaps their next release could be Antarctic themed, because ‘Skua Attack’ would be sure to get people moving.

Compared to such exertion, plunging my arms into water chilled to a healthy -1.7 degrees was a breeze. No, this wasn’t ‘pat a krill’, but it may as well have been because the range of animals in the Crary labs touch tank was just bizarre. Ogly eyed fish, pink kina, road cone orange sea spiders…. The sea spiders were really neat because they had all of their vital organs in their legs. I imagine if they ever made a zombie movie it would be full of single limbs limping after their prey in a bloodthirsty chase. Luckily for us we managed to keep all of the limbs intact and took all of the critters back to Scott Base for release out on the sea ice. No comment on how long they survived after that, but it was a nice thought.

Another nice thought that I never thought I’d ever think was how intriguing nematodes really are. The ‘wormherders’ in the science labs at McMurdo were all too happy to show us around and explain how they search through samples of dirt for the microscopic critters all day. We were especially lucky because they had just filmed a nematode being chewed by a tardigrade and spent three days debating whether the tardigrade was a) eating the nematode b) kissing the nematode or c) just really really dumb and looking for algae in the wrong place. This mystery was never satisfactorily solved, but it did inspire some microbiological song lyrics. For those of you wishing to enlighten young minds come bedtime, the tune can be found here.

5 little nematodes
Chillin’ out on the road
Hiding from hungry tardigrades (OM NOM)
One of them, he got caught
His chances then were nought
Then there were 4 wee nematodes….

Antarctic biology is smaller, creepier and more dangerous than I ever imagined. After experiencing a small taste of Antarctica's weird and wonderful ecosystem, I actually wouldn't be surprised if the penguins broke into song and dance whenever people weren't watching.Who knows what they'll find when they film the birds over winter? Chip manufacturers, stay tuned...