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

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 arthro...

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Bibliographic Details
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
geo
envir
Antarctic
Guano
Rosenthal
Rosenthal Islands
The Antarctic
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
Description
Summary: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.

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