The Maritime Antarctic Region comprises the Antarctic Peninsula and several islands and archipelagos in the southern Atlantic Ocean such as the South Shetland Islands and James Ross Island.Despite the limited variation in freshwater habitats, the Region presents a sufficient amount of opporttmities for the development of a diverse diatom microflora.For a long time however, due to the force-fitting of most taxa into north-American and European names and taxonomic drift, the limnoterrestrial and aquatic diatom flora from this Region, was considered to be composed of mainly cosmopolitan taxa such as Luticola mutica, Navicula veneta, Piunularia microstauron or Amphora veneta.