Many people hope to come back from a wildlife safari with close-up pictures of lions or elephants – this picture below is my best attempt from a search for the largest land animals in Antarctica.

If you look hard you can see a reddish blob at the tip of the thumb — it’s Antarctica’s most aggressive land predator, an eight-legged mite known as Rhagidia.

Pete Convey, a biologist at the British Antarctic Survey (that’s his thumb), says that such tiny creatures evolved in Antarctica over tens of millions of years — they can freeze their bodies in winter in an extreme form of hibernation.

Penguins, seals and whales are the best known animals in Antarctica, but none live year-round on land, where the biggest creature is a flightless midge whose name is ”Belgica antarctica” and who’s about 0.5 cm long.

Global warming could mean problems for some of these tiny creatures if it keeps going — the Antarctic Peninsula where Pete showed us the creatures has warmed by about 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) over the past 50 years, the fastest rate in the southern hemisphere.

Some other creatures might be able to survive in a warmer climate and threaten mites like Rhagidia.

Pete is a genius at finding the creatures — the second rock he picked up had one of these red mites on it…I picked up about 50 and found none.

Here is Pete on his hunt being filmed by my colleague Stuart McDill of Reuters TV: (for a text story, click here)

 And here’s a much better close-up of a monstrous Antarctic mite, related to Rhagidia:

 U.S. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is making few friends among U.N. climate experts with her view that natural swings, along with human activities, may explain global warming.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Climate Panel, says that evidence is mounting that human activities are the main cause of warming. The panel reported last year that it was at least 90 percent certain that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, were heating the planet.

He predicted in a telephone interview that Palin’s influence would be limited on climate change if Republican John McCain won the presidency.

“In the ultimate analysis I don’t think the vice president of the United States really matters in these subjects. I wouldn’t really worry too much about her,” he said.

 (…even so, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, with Pachauri’s panel. Or did Gore only become a guru for greens after he left office?)

Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, also said when asked about Palin’s views that: “We have the science. The debate over the science is over.”

Many delegates at an International Union for Conservation of Nature congress I am attending in Barcelona also say they worry that Palin’s views make it sound as if the science of global warming is far less certain than it is.

So, at least from interviews I have been doing for a Reuters News environment summit, Palin is out in the cold.

Who’s right?