Preliminary Arthropod Survey: Rosenthal Islands

Abstract

The Rosenthal Islands lie along the western edge the Antarctic Peninsula. They are largely inaccessible and the few research projects in the area have focused on the penguin colonies on the islands, thus, nothing is known about the arthropod fauna on the islands. Here, we conducted a preliminary survey of the arthropods on the islands with large penguin colonies. We identified two species of collembolans, four species of mites, and one insect. The mites and collembolans were common in large aggregations among our collecting sites and were occasionally observed on the surface of penguin guano without any vegetative cover. The insect, a Chironomid midge, was only found in vegetated areas and was less common in general.