I.D. Antarctica 2023 – Week #2 Answer

We’re sorry for the delay in getting you an answer for the mystery fish. The last couple weeks at Palmer Station have been especially hectic!  The fish is a larval white-blooded icefish called Chionodraco rastrospinosus (or…

I.D. Antarctica 2023 – Week #2 Mystery Creature

Hello from Palmer Station, Antarctica!  We arrived to Palmer Station just in time to ring in the new year! One of the scientists found a giant rubber buoy floating in the ocean the day before New Years Eve, which is a…

I.D. Antarctica 2023 – Week #1 Answers

Hi everyone! We hope you enjoyed identifying this first round of mystery seabirds and zooplankton.  Mystery Seabird #1 The first sea bird is called a Cape petrel, or Daption capense. This might have been a tough ID because you…

I.D. Antarctica 2023 – Week #1 Mystery Creatures

Hello and welcome to Investigate and Discover (I.D.) Antarctica 2023! We are excited to share our Antarctic experiences and research this year with you all. After some exhausting travel by air and by sea, we arrived in Antarctica on 29…

I.D. Antarctica – Home at Last

Land ho! Pictured above is the first bit of South America we saw from the ship. After a remarkably smooth crossing of the Drake Passage, we made it back to Punta Arenas, Chile. It’s not always so smooth, though! This Quicktime video…
Adelie penguin colony, Antarctica

I.D. Antarctica #5 – Answer

Hello! I hope you all had a fun time trying to identify these sea birds.  I'm sure you realized these are penguins - were you able to identify the species?       This is an adult Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae)…
Bird and Chicks, Antarctica

I.D. Antarctica – Week #5 Mystery Creature

Greetings from Antarctica! Sadly, we are heading back to Chile later this week. Our last stop is at one of the three Antarctic bases operated by the United States called Palmer Station, on the Western Antarctic Peninsula. It is a very cool place…
Zooplankton predator-prey, Antarctica

I.D. Antarctica #4 – Answer

Hello! I hope you all had a great week. We had a chance to see some beautiful icebergs. Of all the scenery down here, they are definitely my favorite. Waves carve away the ice to create unbelievable structures.     So,…
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…