Animals discovered deep beneath Antarctic ice shelves

Scientists recently drilled through 900 meters of ice in the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf, located in the southeastern Weddell sea. Very few animals have been discovered in these places because of the unfavorable temperatures, going all the way to -2.2° Celsius. Such places are also completely dark. Surprisingly, this particular study found a number of stationary animals there, such as sponges and possibly unknown species, bound to a boulder on the sea floor. Noted Biographer and lead author, Dr. Huw Griffiths said that ‘This discovery is one of those that pushes ideas in a different direction and shows us that Antarctic marine life is incredibly special and amazingly adapted to a frozen world’. Floating ice shelves are the most unexplored habitat in the world, even though it spans over 1.5 million square kilometers. Existing theories about the life there indicate that filter feeding organisms that require sunlight become less abundant as the ice becomes more abundant. It was surprising for the team to discover a rock rather than mud under the ice, and this discovery could lead to the finding of a plethora of new species of organisms, many of which could prove useful to humans in many ways.