With the spectacular new BBC series Frozen Planet beginning next week in the UK, ARKive is giving you the chance to explore the dramatic landscapes and fascinating wildlife at the extremes of our planet with our new eco-region pages.
The new Arctic and Antarctic pages showcase the habitats and species at the extreme north and south of the planet, and also demonstrate how different the two poles can be. While the Antarctic is a rocky continent surrounded by the Southern Ocean, the Arctic is not a continent but a region at the extreme north of the planet, largely consisting of the frozen Arctic Ocean and the tops of the countries surrounding it.
Due to the tilt of the planet, parts of both poles share the characteristic of having a period of 24 hour daylight during the summer months and perpetual darkness for a period during the winter. However, although both of these regions share an icy reputation, their climates can be quite different.
The Antarctic holds the record for the lowest temperature ever recorded on the Earth’s surface, at -89.2 degrees Celsius, with summer temperatures barely rising above freezing. While winter temperatures in the Arctic region can drop to around -60 degrees Celsius, summer temperatures are generally warmer than in the Antarctic, sometimes reaching up to 20 degrees Celsius.
Animals at the extremes
In spite of popular misconception, polar bears do not hunt penguins. They live at opposite poles, with polar bears hunting on the frozen sea ice of the Arctic, and penguins only being found in the southern hemisphere. All animals that inhabit the polar regions, however, are superbly adapted to survive the extreme conditions with insulating layers of fat and dense fur or feathers.
Other land mammals that occur in the Arctic region include the Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus), Arctic hare (Lepus arcticus), muskox (Ovibos moschatus) and reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). The Arctic is also home to a number of marine-dwelling mammal species, including the main prey of the polar bear, the ringed seal (Pusa hispida), as well as the walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) with its enormous tusks, the mysterious narwhal (Monodon monoceros) and the snow-white beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas).
There are no naturally occurring land mammals in the Antarctic, but the surrounding oceans are home to a rich diversity of marine mammals, including ice habitat specialists, the leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx), Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) and crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophaga).
The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is also home to many species of cetacean, including the Antarctic minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis), sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), and the largest animal in the world, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus).
Both the Arctic and Antarctic provide important breeding habitat for birds, with the brent goose (Branta bernicla) and the ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea) breeding exclusively in the Arctic, and species such as the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) and black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophrys) occurring in the Antarctic.
The Arctic region is home to some 3,000 species of flowering plant, which bloom during the brief Arctic summer. The Arctic tundra also supports small shrubs and trees, such as the Arctic willow (Salix arctica).
Due to the extreme conditions, the Antarctic mainland is relatively poor in plant life, with no species of tree or shrub, and only two flowering plant species, the Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica) and the Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis).