Belgica antarctica

The Antarctic midge is a small, wingless fly, only 2 to 6 millimetres long, and the largest purely land-living invertebrate native to the continent of Antarctica. It is also the only insect able to live there all year round. Most of its two-year life is spent as a larva that feeds on terrestrial algae, fungi and decaying plant matter in the moist ground around penguin colonies and coastal moss beds, while the adults emerge in summer, do not feed, and live no more than about ten days. It survives freezing and heavy loss of body water by building up protective sugars and glycerol, and it carries the smallest insect genome known. The species was first collected on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 to 1899 and described by Jean-Charles Jacobs in 1900.