The Arctic is a lush paradise compared to Antarctica.
The temperature is higher, there are more snow-free areas during the summer, the soil is richer, and the precipitation is heavier.
Antarctica is, by virtue of its dryness, a desert; the Arctic is not.
The Arctic has more than 400 species of flowering plants as well as grasses, herbs, shrubs, and grassy sedges.
Birds and insects are plentiful and frolic during the balmy summer, when, in some parts anyway, the average high temperature can soar from well below zero up to a near-tropical 50 ° F.
And of course, there are the arctic land animals like the polar bear, arctic fox, ermine, arctic wolf, wolverine, walrus, seal, caribou, musk ox, lemming, and arctic hare.
And, like the Antarctic, the Arctic has skuas, too.
