New Records of Tardigrades from the Danco and Graham Coasts, the Maritime Antarctic

Abstract

Antarctic is an area with extreme conditions for the survival of living organisms, as well as a specific region for conducting research. For this reason, studies of Antarctic tardigrades are rather fragmentary. Since 1904, when the first tardigrade was described in the Antarctic, up to the present, 76 species of tardigrades have been reported from Antarctic and Subantarctic regions. In this paper, we report seven tardigrade taxa found in different locations of the western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula during the 26th Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition. Diphascon puchalskii and Mesobiotus aradasi are recorded for the first time outside type localities for Danco Coast and the area outside King George Island correspondently.