Belgica antarctica, or the Antarctic midge, is the only insect that lives year-round on its namesake continent. Do you know how weird you have to be to be the only insect somewhere? But this midge doesn’t care. It just lives out its bug life, which lasts two years, in an otherwise bugless wasteland.
Humans definitely care about the midge, though—how could we not? What is it doing there? How is it not dead? What can it teach us about cryopreservation? These questions are addressed in a new study that resolved mysteries about the animal’s interesting life cycle.
The paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-86617-4