An Ark for Antarctica

Imagine a zoo of Antarctic life. Donning thick winter coats, hats, and gloves, visitors enter the air-conditioned aviary and are met with the raucous braying of Emperor penguins. On rocky escarpments next to sea ice, Adelie penguins comically collect small pebbles while snow petrels fly above. In the marine mammal exhibit, Weddel seals, piebald blimps of blubber, slowly sink into crystal-clear waters. A toddler swaddled in a snowsuit presses her hands against the thick glass, a few invisible inches between her and the Antarctic.

Penguins and seals may be the largest animals here, but it is the benthic fauna, the seafloor-dwellers, who make the biggest impression. These creatures are so otherworldly that they push visitors to reconsider what life can be. There are sea anemones the size of buckets; 12-armed starfish who grow to the size of garbage-bin lids; so-called sea spiders, no relation to terrestrial arachnids, with bodies so small that their reproductive organs and digestive tract reach into their legs. And then there are the fish, including 16 species of notothenioid “icefish” who live in 28 degree Fahrenheit water and keep their organs ice-free by pumping their bodies full of antifreeze proteins.