Scientists found microscopic animal corpses in a lake located 1 km below the ice sheet in Antarctica.
Scientists came across microscopic animal bodies in a lake in Antarctica, 1 km below the ice sheet. Scientists studying the subglacial lake Mercer were looking for traces of life here, but they did not expect to find animals. Micropaleontologist David Harwood from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Scientific Access to Subglacial Antarctic Lakes mission continues their research in the lakes below by melting ice and drilling holes with radar and other remote sensing techniques that can examine the interior of the ice.
Among the animals the team discovered in the underground lake were crustaceans and tardigrades (water bear). The researchers, who looked at the water samples taken from the lake under a microscope, stated that they saw something like crushed spider and crustacean, and other things looked like worms. Interestingly, some of the animals found were land-based. 8-legged tardigrades are known to live in moist soils. Animals that look like maggots were leech-like creatures from a land-dwelling plant or fungus.
They may have arrived thousands of years ago
The team thinks these creatures lived in ponds and streams in the Transantactic Mountains, 50 km from Lake Mercer. This event may have happened between 10 thousand and 120 thousand years ago, in a short period of time when the glaciers in Antarctica retreated. Later, the hot period ended and large ice sheets formed in the area again. Thus, the underlying lakes were protected from external influences. Rivers under the ice may have taken these animals from the mountains to lakes, or the animals frozen in the glacier may have moved from the mountains to the lakes.
It is the first time that life forms of this complexity have been found under the ice sheet. Previous studies have also found traces of life in Lake Whillans, 50 km from Lake Mercer, but it was never such a complex habitat.
