A preliminary survey of the terrestrial arthropods of the Rosenthal Islands, Antarctica

• Published in: Polar Research
• Main Authors: J.D. Gantz, Drew E. Spacht, Richard E. Lee
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Norwegian Polar Institute 2018
• Subjects: Antarctic Peninsula; maritime Antarctic; Collembola; mites; Belgica antarctica; Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Oceanography; GC1-1581; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Guano; Rosenthal; Rosenthal Islands; Alaskozetes antarcticus; Antarc*; Antarctica; antarcticus; Cryptopygus antarcticus; Polar Research; Mite
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1080/17518369.2018.1500266; https://doaj.org/article/3d60f871a3c6474bab3c177c73efcc9b

The Rosenthal Islands lie along the western edge of the Antarctic Peninsula. They are largely inaccessible and the few research projects in the area have focused on seabird colonies, so nothing has been known about the arthropod fauna on these islands. We conducted a preliminary survey of the arthropods associated with large penguin colonies. We identified two species of Collembola (Cryptopygus antarcticus and Friesea grisea), four species of mites (Alaskozetes antarcticus, Hydrogamasellus racovitzai, Tectopenthalodes villosus and Rhagidia sp.) and one insect (Belgica antarctica). The mite A. antarcticus and the collembolan C. antarcticus were common in large aggregations at our collecting sites and were occasionally observed on the surface of penguin guano without vegetative cover. The insect, a chironomid midge, was less common and found only in vegetated areas.