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You are here: Home / Animals / How Many Other Animals Live in Antarctica Besides Seals and Penguins and Why?

How Many Other Animals Live in Antarctica Besides Seals and Penguins and Why?

July 22, 2020 by Karen Hill

Under the icy waters of Antarctica are huge numbers of whales, but up on the surface, few things are hardy enough to spend much time on the frozen land.

penguins in Antarctica

Even regional plants would likely prefer to live somewhere else, vegetation on Antarctica is limited to about 350 species of mosses, algae, and lichens.

Oh, yeah, mites and ticks also manage to survive there, as they seem to about everywhere else, relying on their hosts’ body heat as much as their blood.

No land-based animals live in Antarctica at all, however.

Six species of seals, notably the crab-eater, elephant, and leopard, emerge from the water once a year to breed, the land might be cold, but it’s predator-free.

Only twelve species of birds live there, of which six are various types of penguins.

It is the nesting place of the wandering albatross, which has the distinction of having the longest wingspan of all birds, about eleven feet from tip to tip.

The remaining six species are gull-like seabirds, most notably the skua and the arctic tern, which divide their time between the two polar regions.

Related Facts

  • How Would Penguins Survive In the Arctic and Would Polar Bears Survive In Antarctica If They Moved There?
  • What Types of Plants and Animals Live in Antarctica?
  • Why Do Penguins Live in Antarctica at the South Pole and Not in the Arctic at the North Pole?
  • When Did Penguins Become Flightless Birds And Why Did Penguins Evolve To Swim?
  • Where do Germs, Bacteria, and Viruses come from and How do they make us sick?
  • Why do Mother Penguins Abandon Their Eggs Leaving the Penguin Fathers to Raise the Chicks Alone?

Filed Under: Animals

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « How is it Possible for Plants to Survive in Polar Regions on Earth and What do They Look Like?
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