Christine Muller-Schwarze (also Müller-Schwarze), an American psychologist from Utah State University, was the first American scientist to work on the

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...

mainland.

Antarctic work

She accompanied her husband, Dietland Muller-Schwarze, a biologist, to Cape Crozier on

Ross Island Ross Island is an island formed by four volcanoes in the Ross Sea near the continent of Antarctica, off the coast of Victoria Land in McMurdo Sound. Ross Island lies within the boundaries of Ross Dependency, an area of Antarctica claimed by New ...

. Flying from Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 October 1969, they arrived in Antarctica to study Adelie penguins at Cape Crozier, some 50 miles from the American

McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the Unit ...

. Four other American scientists joined Muller-Schwarze three weeks later. For a time, the couple shared a field cabin with other scientists but later had their own collapsible fibreglass igloo. In the early 1970s, they also worked on Christine Island whose name was proposed in Christine's honour by her husband who worked for the

U.S. Antarctic Research Program The United States Antarctic Program (or USAP; formerly known as the United States Antarctic Research Program or USARP and the United States Antarctic Service or USAS) is an organization of the United States government which has presence in the A ...

(USARP). Jones and six other women scientists were flown to the South Pole on 12 November 1969 but Muller-Schwarze declined the trip as she was too busy with her penguins. Muller-Schwarze and her husband studied the behaviour of the predator-prey relationships between the leopard seal and the south polar skua as well as the prophylactic and defensive behaviour of Adelie penguins, showing that when dispersed by a leopard seal attack, the penguins remain motionless for long periods. Together with her husband, Muller-Schwarze published her findings on penguins in ''Pinguine'' (in German), first published in 1975.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller-Schwarze, Christine American women biologists Women Antarctic scientists Utah State University people Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American women American Antarctic scientists