Incidences of cryo-benthic communities beneath ice shelves are rare and recent discoveries. Combined seal- and ROV-borne imagery and novel sampling technologies allowed for a comparative assessment and augmentation of earlier findings on cryo-benthic communities being attached head-down to the underside of floating shelf ice beneath Ekström (Atka Bay) and neighbouring Riiser-Larsen ice shelves (Drescher Inlet; eastern Weddell Sea). These “hanging gardens” represent a food horizon where seals could benefit from a local hotspot of enhanced biological activity, and could probably be indicative for increased abundances of seals at the interface between shelf and sea ice. Here we compile local physical, biological, and biogeochemical data and discuss their relevance in the wider regional context for this faunal hotspot. These include data on shelf-, sea- and platelet ice, seafloor topography, hydrography and water chemistry, as well as associated pelagic and benthic marine life, in particular affinities of the cryo-benthic isopod community to related fauna occurring in nearby seabed communities using molecular barcoding. In view of the vast but almost entirely unsampled habitat of >1.5 million square km in the entire Southern Ocean, the magnitude of the carbon stored is a significant gap in our knowledge of the Southern Ocean food web. This unique ecosystem is endemic to the Antarctic and under severe threat due to climate warming.