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Zooplankton predator-prey, Antarctica

I.D. Antarctica – Mystery Creature #4

Greetings from Antarctica! We pulled a special type of net behind our research vessel today called a MOCNESS. It stands for Multiple Opening and Closing Net Environmental Sampling System. It is a very important piece of oceanographic research…
Icefish from Antarctica

I.D. Antarctica #3 – Answer

Hello again!  Did you think it was easy or hard to identify our week #3 mystery creature?  I hope you enjoyed the challenge!  Or did it make you feel like this fish looks? Well, the correct answer for the fish identification is.....drum…
Fish to identify in Week #3

I.D. Antarctica – Mystery Creature #3

Hello again! I am especially excited this week because we have caught some larval fishes during a net tow in the bay pictured above. Most adult fishes in the Southern Ocean are benthic, which means they live near the sea floor. However,…
Hyperiid Amphipod

I.D. Antarctica #2 – Answer

Hi everyone!  I hope you had fun trying to identify this week’s mystery creature!  It can really be a challenge to identify an organism from just one photograph - ideally, you'd be able to see the actual creature from many different angles. So...the…
Hyperiid Amphipod

I.D. Antarctica #2

Greetings from Antarctica! I am standing on the back deck of our ship, the Laurence M. Gould, preparing to launch our net system. We are using the net to catch a variety of small marine animals that are collectively called zooplankton. We lower…
A map of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean

SWARM Data Activity #1

In addition to our weekly I.D. Antarctica mysteries, this winter we are also happy to feature a series of data activities from Project SWARM. Oceanographers from Rutgers University and the University of Delaware are currently staying at…
A Pagodroma nivea, or the snow petrel flying above the ocean.

I.D. Antarctica #1 Answer

Hello again! We made it out of the sea ice and we are currently searching for whales to try and tag. Were you able to identify the mystery creature in I.D. Antarctica #1?  I hope you were all able to understand how to use the dichotomous…
The R/V Laurence M. Gould in front of an Antarctic glacier.

Attention Educators – Please check out this polar opportunity

The Arctic LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) site is recruiting two middle or high school teachers to travel with a research team to the north slope of Alaska during the summer of 2020. This experience immerses teachers in the practices of…
A white bird above the snow of Antarctica

I.D. Antarctica #1

A beautiful white bird just flew by and I have no idea what species it is. I almost missed it with how well it blends in with its surroundings. Let’s try and identify it with a dichotomous key I created just for this challenge - download…
The R/V Laurence M. Gould in front of an Antarctic glacier.

I.D. Antarctica Begins Soon

Welcome to the first post of our I.D. Antarctica series. Over the next 6 weeks, Andrew Corso, a PhD candidate at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, will post weekly "mysteries" during his research cruise off the coast of Antarctica. This…
The R/V Laurence M. Gould in front of an Antarctic glacier.

Connect Your Students with Scientists in Antarctica

This winter, we are excited to offer two opportunities for you to connect your classroom with scientists in Antarctica: I.D. Antarctica and Palmer LTER Video Teleconferences. I.D. Antarctica:  Help polar scientist Andrew Corso identify the…
The R/V Laurence M. Gould in front of an Antarctic glacier.
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LIVE with Antarctic Scientists

An exciting opportunity to connect LIVE with Antarctic scientists! From October 21 to November 2, 2019, with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Inner Space Center (ISC) will be conducting LIVE interactions from…