Major Discovery' Beneath Antarctic Seas: A Giant Icefish Breeding Colony

 

Imbler, Sabrina. “'Major Discovery' Beneath Antarctic Seas: A Giant Icefish Breeding Colony.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Jan. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/science/icefish-antarctica-eggs-colony.html.

The article “‘Major discovery’ beneath Antarctic Seas: A Giant Ice Fish Breeding Colony” by Sabrina Imbler is about the discovery of a 92 square mile area on the Antarctic sea floor inhabiting millions of icefish nests. Each nest is about the size of a hula hoop less than a foot apart - with an icefish guarding the nest and it’s fins spread out around it. The Polarstern, a German research ship that went on the largest Arctic science expedition in history, happened to stumble upon what is now known as the largest fish breeding colony ever discovered. This colony contains 60 million active icefish nests. The icefish can survive in suprisingingly cold water because of their “enormous hearts and blood that runs clear as vodka”. Lilian Boehringer, a student researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, first spotted the icefish nests. The icefish colony stretched for an entire 4 hour dive, and 16,160 were recorded on camera. Autun Purser, a deep-sea biologist at the same institute explains the experience of first hand sightings. “We were like, is this ever going to end?” Dr. Purser exclaimed. “How come no one has ever seen this before?”

This discovery is extremely important and contributes to society. Not only does it contribute to scientist’s understanding of icefish life cycles, but it also raises many scientific questions that are willing to be answered, the most precedent one being - why were they there? This discovery launched a whole new mission of solving the bizarre puzzle that is this ecosystem of icefish. It raises new insights into how icefish reproduce and challenges scientists' minds about how they contribute to polar food web or if they could help save new deepsea populations. 

This article was very interesting and well written. The author makes sure to emphasize the subject of the wonders of the deep sea and what else could be discovered in the ocean, which brings in a wide audience of readers. “The seafloor is not just barren and boring,” Dr. Purser said. “Such huge discoveries are still there to be made, even today in the 21st century.” The author included this detail to leave a lasting impression on the reader; making them wonder what else could exist in earth’s waters that we have no idea exists. The author also gives specific details and quotes from researchers on the exhibition finding the colony, which lets us know that this article is a reliable source. Although the article was very well written, it did have some flaws. The author did not go into detail about the “Polarstern” ship and exhibition, just simply mentioned that it was the research mission it was discovered on. It ceased to tell us that the ship held one of the most significant modern day exhibitions, that went on the largest Arctic science expedition in history - I had to research that part myself. The author was also lacking a few key details which should be included to allow the reader a better understanding of the significance of this finding. Overall, I enjoyed this article despite its flaws.