#AntarcticLog is a series of comics by Karen Romano Young. You can find the originals here. 

If you were going to make an Antarctic cake, what would you put on it? Rose McAdoo — steward at McMurdo station, polar explorer, and baker extraordinaire — has baked cakes to display scientists’ data, taught prison inmates to decorate cakes, and created this one, complete with sea spider. 

I was especially pleased to see this after admiring the sea spiders living in the aquarium at Palmer Station. Who knew there were such bright colors, gorgeous textures, and diversity of life under the sea off that glacial coast? 

It’s spider season here in Connecticut, when the spiders cozy up to the warm, lights on our porches, dividing their energy between weaving webs to capture bugs magnetized to the lights and laying eggs that will be their legacy as the cold weather comes on. We cheer the spiders on, wishing they could catch all the mosquitoes driving us crazy. 

As for Antarctic bugs, there’s only one native one. Here it is: 

–Karen Romano Young is a writer, artist, deep-sea diver, and polar explorer. Follow her on Twitter & Instagram.