site.btaProf. Christo Pimpirev on Exploring Antarctica, the Earth's Biggest Natural Lab

Attending an event dedicated to Antarctica in Plovdiv's Regional Natural History Museum, Prof. Christo Pimpirev, head of the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute, praised participants in Bulgaria's expedition to Livingston Island who returned with an icefish. He stressed that they crossed the tropics, the Equator and the storms of the Atlantic Ocean, "when you cannot even stand upright on the ship because of the waves."

"The icefish is an endemic species that lives only in cold waters, and if the temperature rises even by 4-5 degrees, it will die. Its blood is white, it has no hemoglobin," said Pimpirev. The icefish stays only on the seabed because it is a bottom-dwelling fish, but now it has started to feed, which means it has adapted to the local conditions.

"A team of specialists - people who know about fish and museum work, had to go and bring here an icefish, which lives in the cold Southern Ocean where the temperature stays below zero all year round," he said.

Prof. Pimpirev called Antarctica "the largest natural laboratory in the world, the litmus test of the climate." He stressed Bulgaria should be proud of its presence in Antarctica, using its own naval research vessel, the Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii: "Now we have our research vessel and we are present in the World Ocean, we even brought fish back from its southernmost part, where conditions are the harshest, where there are icebergs and glaciers."

Kristiyan Vladov and Stefan Kyurkchiev, curators at the Regional Natural History Museum,  talked about their adventures during the Antarctic expedition, and the thrilling transport of live fish from Antarctica to the museum's aquarium.

They told BTA their goal was both to enrich the museum's collections and to support future research on the adaptive mechanisms of Antarctic organisms in controlled environments.
"This was a pilot project - these species can be seen only here. We not only study them, but also present them to children for educational purposes," they said.