A few weeks ago, scientists at Ukraine’s Vernadsky Research Base in Antarctica awoke to find their usually pristine white surrounds drenched in a shocking blood-red.

From the gory-looking images, you could be forgiven for wondering if there’d been some sort of horror-movie-style penguin massacre. The good news is that the real cause is far less dramatic; unfortunately, it still has dire implications.

Marine ecologist Andrey Zotov from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, captured these images while conducting research at the Antarctic station. For such an epic mess, the culprits behind this dramatic redecoration are incredibly tiny.

“Our scientists have identified them under a microscope as Chlamydomonas nivalis,” said the National Antarctic Scientific Centre of Ukraine in a Facebook post.

These microscopic green algae (we’ll get…