![]() Couple that with freezing temperatures, and the Antarctic provides little hope for a wayward housefly trapped on a ship. The Southern Ocean provides a formidable barrier to entering Antarctica, a great wall of water and powerful currents that has separated the continent from the rest of the world for about 30 million years. If their prison break were to succeed, they'd find themselves facing seemingly endless waters, with nowhere to go. Surviving flies buzz at the ship's windows, trying to escape the upper decks. I know this because I've been watching them as part of the crew onboard the Nuyina as it crosses the Southern Ocean. At temperatures below 14 degrees Fahrenheit, flies move lackadaisically and seem to barely get airborne. You likely know it as the housefly.Įven if it hadn't been felled by an errant hand or boot, it likely wouldn't have survived the journey to Antarctica. Scientists call the creature Musca domestica. Unlike the throng of Antarctic expeditioners aboard the RSV Nuyina, Australia's newest icebreaking ship, it hasn't cleared customs.ĭays after the Nuyina departed its harbor in Hobart, Tasmania, the alien buzzed its way across the Derwent River, slipped through an open door and zipped into the bowels of the ship until this restless, twitching death. ![]() If you get close enough, you can see one of its six legs twitching and one of its translucent wings crushed to pieces. At the bottom of the stairwell leading to deck five, an alien lies upturned on green nonslip flooring.
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