Antarctica’s hostile conditions doesn’t make it an ideal place for insects says Richard Jones <\/p>
The coldest place on earth <\/a>Antarctica is pretty inhospitable but life does thrive there<\/strong> including one insect.<\/strong><\/p> To date, the insect fauna of Antarctica seems to number just one species \u2013 the Antarctic midge (Belgica antarctica<\/em>). <\/p> This tiny (2\u20136mm) fly is wingless (an adaptation to prevent it being blown away), and the maggots spend an arduous two years eking out meagre nutrition from tiny terrestrial algae<\/a> and mosses to get through their life-cycle.<\/p> The midge survives the winter by over-accumulating sugars in its body as a natural antifreeze, and by dehydrating itself so cell-rupturing ice crystals do not form.<\/p> It then goes into hibernation<\/a>-like torpor<\/a> under a warming blanket of snow to stay above its \u201315\u00b0C survival threshold. Since the fly remains on the continent year-round (unlike summer-visiting birds), it is also Antarctica\u2019s largest permanent land animal.<\/p> Main image: <\/em>Belgica antarctica. \u00a9 Tasteofcrayons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Antarctica’s hostile conditions doesn’t make it an ideal place for insects says Richard Jones <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":40817,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/does-antarctica-have-any-insects-and-whats-this-hostile-continents-largest-permanent-land-animal.jpg",610,915,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/does-antarctica-have-any-insects-and-whats-this-hostile-continents-largest-permanent-land-animal-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/does-antarctica-have-any-insects-and-whats-this-hostile-continents-largest-permanent-land-animal-200x300.jpg",200,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/does-antarctica-have-any-insects-and-whats-this-hostile-continents-largest-permanent-land-animal.jpg",610,915,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/does-antarctica-have-any-insects-and-whats-this-hostile-continents-largest-permanent-land-animal.jpg",610,915,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/does-antarctica-have-any-insects-and-whats-this-hostile-continents-largest-permanent-land-animal.jpg",610,915,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/does-antarctica-have-any-insects-and-whats-this-hostile-continents-largest-permanent-land-animal.jpg",610,915,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Antarctica's hostile conditions doesn't make it an ideal place for insects says Richard Jones","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/40816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More fascinating insect facts<\/strong><\/h4>
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