The summit of Mauna Kea is a bleak, cold apparently lifeless place with cinder cones on a plateau of lava, but there are a number of organisms that have adapted to the inhospitable environment. These include lichens, algae, mosses, insects, spiders and other small arthropods. There are at least twelve species of endemic arthropods living there, and the community is largely dependent on the wind-blown insects that are deposited there.