Antarctic Biology (1965)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] antarctica is the only continent which has never been the home of man it is unique in having a combination of the lowest temperature and most desiccated atmosphere in the whole world this means that even though the amount of life is limited it is worth studying to see how it meets the problems of existence at all though huge ski equipped planes carry out most of the logistic activities within the antarctic major dependence must still be placed upon the icebreakers which make way for the supply ships that bring in the needed heavy tonnage of fuel and other supplies pallet station which is jointly operated by new zealand and the united states is our first port of call [Music] i know of no more beautiful setting for a station anywhere in the world than that of hallett in antarctica the coasts are steep and rugged and backed up by spectacular ice-clad mountains which dominate victoria land down through gaps between these mountains flow mighty streams of ice draining the great inland ice sheet on the plateau behind the only flat area along the steep rugged coast of victoria land is a sand spit on which hallett station was built long long before man appeared on the antarctic continent the daily penguins had made this their home they have used it as a rookery for many centuries because there simply are no other flat areas available so far as we know within hundreds of miles the daily then has been at home here for untold centuries of the many species of penguins only two are exclusively indigenous to antarctica the stately emperor who welcomed us and the little daily who was only about a foot and a half high daily does not spend his winter here he migrates northward with the coming winter and then comes back to his ancestral home for the mating season in the summer life is relatively simple among the penguins the nests consist of pebbles arranged in such fashion as to keep the eggs from rolling away [Music] the lovemaking antics are quite obvious the flapping of the wings is a part of the ceremony of courtship another common part consists in a male penguin bringing pebbles and putting them at the feet of the lady of his choice a flap of skin at the bottom of the belly is so split that when the penguin squats it covers the eggs the business of incubation is shared by both the male and the female and likewise when the young are hatched the parents go out to sea and bring back craws full of tiny shrimp-like creatures which are regurgitated to feed the young terrestrial plant life in antarctica is scarce and is restricted almost entirely to lichens and mosses the climate on the rocks where the lichens grow is often surprisingly different than that just a few feet above the ground careful photographing is one of the many techniques used to measure growth rate some lichens are bright colored as the orange zantoria and the yellow calaplaca while many others like the carmelia are gray some mosses are occasionally found along with the lichens it is necessary to supplement the field studies by work inside the laboratory and the biological laboratory here at hallett station doesn't look essentially different from a biological laboratory anywhere else in the world it is highly advantageous however to be able to bring in the fresh samples from out of doors and study them at once rather than go through the laborious and time-consuming tasks of packing them and sending them back to the united states or to new zealand for further study we take off from hallett station and fly to our main base at mcmurdo sound in a dc-3 here's an overview of mcmurdo [Music] this is the great logistics center for our extended antarctic program which is supported by the united states navy [Music] and here are the headquarters buildings for the united states antarctic research program administered by the national science foundation we look across mcmurdo's sound to the royal society range before taking off in the helicopters the indispensable taxis of antarctica which take us out onto the sea ice where we begin our study with the wedding seal commonest of all larger mammalian life in antarctica they are more apt to be found in areas of broken ice like this than elsewhere because in such areas of ice cracks may be open to the sea below the sea lives in the water but must come up to breathe quite frequently [Music] it is an endless source of interest to watch the cows and pups as they clumsily negotiate themselves on the ice while the flippers are magnificently adapted for life in the sea they provide only clumsy means of locomotion on the ice the weddell seal does not migrate far north during the winter time but spends all of his life in antarctic waters this means that the business of keeping holes open through the ice for breathing is a very important one the baby seals like other babies are playful and whether this little fellow is playing just for fun or whether he is flipping at some parasites i don't know i do know that the seals do have parasites [Music] like all mammals the seal suckles its young [Music] the cow nuzzling in the snow may be doing it for fun or she may be preparing to cut a hole through the ice like this if there are no natural openings then the seal must cut them and these must be kept open at all times the seals like to come out of these holes and lie on the ice in the sun during the summer and of course when they are hungry they must return through the hole to the sea below where they can go about the business of getting their food which consists for the most part of fish the first few weeks of the baby's life are spent on the ice and when the time comes when he must fend for himself his mother tries to lure him into the hole i think i would be like the baby seal i would be reluctant to plunge into a bath as obviously cold as this one is however he finally does it and the rest of his life history will be spent largely in the water jerry coyman of the university of arizona and peter kerwitz of stanford university have been carrying on life studies of the seals for some time tags are put on the seals flippers to enable jerry and peter to keep account of them and of their activities [Music] sometimes the seals do not appreciate the importance of scientific research and are not very cooperative it's a relatively painless process however and finally the tags are secured jerry coyman then proceeds to secure some of the precious milk from one of the seals with a sucking two this is put into a flask and will be shipped back to the university of arizona for further study dr carlton ray and his group wish to take specimens back to the united states they secure them in nets and the handy helicopter then flies them back to mcmurdo then the tarp and net are removed and the seals are placed in the pens which have been prepared for them one of the captured seals turned out to be a baby which had lost its mother obviously it would not survive if it were not nursed or force-fed not knowing what was in mind the young fellow resisted at first having water poured down its throat he finally succumbed and even swallowed some of the fish which were also force fed this little snowmobile has become a very important vehicle it has taken the place of the sledge dogs of earlier days indeed my companions who use it tell me that it can do everything the dog can do except wag its tail to get a direct look from below lieutenant lavelli dressed in his wetsuit goes into the new york zoological society shack and prepares to dive into the icy waters below first he is wired by dr ray then he climbs down the ladder slowly submerging as you can see from the bubbles rising to the surface lieutenant lavelli is submerged for 30 minutes and during this time dr ray keeps a very careful record on the physiological charts at the surface i consider this kind of activity one of the real continuing hardships of antarctic [Music] exploration dredging remains one of the most important ways of learning about marine life water is put into the canister then the engine cranks the winch and the cable slowly brings up its load from a depth of some 500 meters it's cold as you note from the ice crystals which form on the cable itself the contents of the net are removed and then will be taken into the biological laboratory these are relatively small fish because they're the only ones that can be brought up in a trap of this size they're very interesting however because we know so little about them some fish as much as four feet long have been secured by other means then comes the familiar squid our octopus and finally the lovely crinoid from a depth of some 500 meters terrestrial life in antarctica is restricted almost entirely to insects and other arthropods mites are among the most numerous and widespread species and are found associated with birds nests and lichens and mosses micro meteorological data are just as important here as in the study of lichens and such data as humidity temperature and pressure are measured to determine the climate in which the mites live doctors wise and rennell from the bishop museum collect these mites with brushes and tubes and aspirators as you know the biological laboratory at mcmurdo sound is unusually well equipped paul dayton of the university of arizona has filled a chamber with antarctic fish and as the chamber rotates the fish must swim against the simulated moving water then the fish are removed they are carefully weighed and the loss of weight indicates the amount of energy expended while the fish were swimming a culture has been placed in a temperature-controlled incubator so that it can be gently mixed then sterilized and an osmometer is used for measuring the osmotic tension and the freezing point of fish blood cape royds the location of shackleton's headquarters in nineteen nine and ten is also a notable a daily penguin rookery people who admire the skewer girl call them the eagles of the antarctic however they are predators and they are very fond of both the eggs and the young of the adelie the behavior of the daily penguin here duplicates that of his cousins at hallett the little fellow has a pebble in his mouth and presumably is looking for a lady to whom he wishes to make love [Music] though antarctica is almost completely ice clad not far from mcmurdo is an exception called dry valley it is interesting for a variety of reasons among others lake bonnie with its unusual ice formations which you see here these take on varied patterns in the course of summer due to differential melting one of the many unsolved mysteries of antarctic life is that which causes seals to wander far away from their natural habitat of the sea and even high up mountain slopes and there to die carcasses such as this one in dry valley may be preserved in the cold dry and arctic air for many many centuries we fly back to mcmurdo along some of south victoria lands magnificent mountains and glaciers [Music] at the far end of ross island is cape crosier noted for its emperor penguin rookery this famous rookery was visited by members of scott's expedition in 1910 and 11 this was one of the most rigorous journeys ever made for it was made in the middle of the winter to secure emperor penguin eggs the emperor penguin unlike the a daily does not migrate northward during the winter and then come back to carry out the business of reproduction during the summer months for some strange reason he reverses the process and waits until the midst of winter in the coldest and bleakest time of the year and then goes on to the sea ice where the female lays one or two eggs which are then jointly incubated by the male and the female you will remember that none of the daily penguin eggs had begun to hatch in either of the rookeries we saw on the other hand these young emperors which are on their way to maturity must have been hatched many weeks ago it is fitting that we should end this glimpse of a bit of antarctic life in the mcmurdo sound area with the emperor penguin to most of us he typifies antarctica better than any of its other creatures you