The video footage shows a creature that swims inside of a borehole next to a cable in a 200-meter thick ice shelf near McMurdo Station in the Antarctic. The audio comment is the voice of Robert Bindschadler, NASA (glaciologist) ice scientist, and he describes the sightings in more detail in the video. With unclear image, and the scientist being in a different field, he called it a “shrimp-like” creature, but it is a lyssianasid amphipod, which is distantly related to the shrimp.
The video description poses an interesting idea on top of that. The AP Archive writes, “The video is likely to inspire experts to rethink what they know about life in harsh environments. And it has scientists musing that if such creatures can exist below 600 feet (180 meters) of Antarctic ice in subfreezing dark water, other hostile places such as Europa, a frozen moon of Jupiter, could also host life. The key unanswered question is how they survive”.
YouTube: Scientists find shrimp-like creature under Antarctic ice sheet
Photo credit: The feature image is part of the crustaceans collection (IU) of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN – Paris) and owned by them. The photo in the body of the article has been taken by Gaelen Marsden.
.jpeg){kind=link}
