Animals In Antarctica
Published on Nov 18, 2015
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Visiting Antarctica is an incredible, almost unearthly, experience. Icebergs bigger than cities. Glaciers with cracks large enough to swallow a football stadium. A floating ice shelf the size of France. An ice cap thicker in some regions than 10 Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other. Along with the enormity come the extremes: of the seven continents, Antarctica is the coldest, highest, driest, windiest-and of course iciest-place on Earth.
-Andrew Monaghan-
🌏ANIMALS IN ANTARCTICA🌎
🐚THE ROCKHOPPER PENGUIN 🐚
The Rockhopper penguin stands 16-18 inches tall and weighs 5 to 6 pounds. Rockhopper penguins are found throughout the Antarctic and in regions of the southern Indian and Pacific Oceans. The regions occupied by the rockhopper penguin depend on the species. The western rockhopper is found about at the tip of the South America; the eastern rockhopper breeds in the Antarctic. They have an ability to hop from rock to rock to their nesting places. They keep both feet together when hopping. Using this method, they are able to hop up to four or five feet!
Photo by Robbo45
🌸ORCAS🌸
THE KILLER WHALE
Killer whales or Orcas are probably the best Whale known. For the carnivores, they have a very keen intelligence. Their Maximum length is 9.8m for males and 8.5m for females. The adult weight for males is 11.1 tonnes max. For females it is 8.3 tonnes max. Their current population is up to 100,000, the majority (70,000) in Antarctica. Orcas weren't targeted by whalers, threats and killing with fisheries and from pollution.
❄️THE WEDDELL SEAL❄️
THE ANIMAL OF THE ICE
Weddell seals are large animals. Both adult males and females are about three metres long and weigh around 400–500 kg. The head is small compared to the body size and the colour is usually a grey and black on the back with a mostly clear white under-belly. As Weddell seals breath air and live under the fast-ice they must breath through cracks and holes in the ice cover. There are many cracks in the ice during the warmer summer months, but not in the winter... They must bite through the ice to make cracks for themselves, by using their strong teeth.
✨ADELIE PENGUIN✨
Adélie penguins were discovered in 1840 by scientists on the French Antarctic expedition. The penguin is a medium sized penguin, weighing between 3 and 6 kgs and standing 70 cm tall. Males and females are of similar size and difficult to tell apart. They are unique by the white ring around their eye. Like all penguins, Adélies are excellent swimmers! In fact, some have been recorded swimming as far as 300 km!
🌊THE LEOPARD SEAL🌊
THE LORDE OF THE ICE
The leopard seal is known as the king of Antarctica. It has a reputation and they are the top predators in the Antarctic waters. They have a body length between 2.5 and 3.2, and they weigh between 200 and 455 kg. Leopard Seals mainly feed on smaller animals like small seals, penguins, other birds, fish, squid and krill. The main predator of Leopard Seals are Killer Whales. It is estimated that the population of the seal is about 220,000 - 440,000 individuals !
THE FOOD CHAIN
⚡️KRILL⚡️
A bit about the Krill...
The krill averages only about two inches (five centimeters). These small, shrimp-like crustaceans are essentially the most important organisms in the food chain. Krill feed on phytoplankton, microscopic, single-celled plants that float around in the water. They are one of the most important organisms in the Antarctica waters. Simply, If the krill would die it would have a huge impact on other creatures living there that feed off it, which means most will disappear.
ICE CORES
- An ice core is a cylinder-shaped sample of drilled ice from a glacier.
- To find ice cores you need to dig 3,000 meters/ 3feet down a glacier.
- It is a way to investigate past climate, future climate and climate now.
- 740,000 years ago scientists discovered that the earth has been through 8 Ice ages in 740,000 years!
- As well as containing information about temperatures, it contains facts about other aspects of the environment
More about ice cores
Most ice core records come from Antarctica and Greenland, and the longest ice cores extend to 3km in depth. Ice cores contain information about past temperature, and about many other aspects of the environment. Ice cores contain little bubbles of air which are gases. This allows people to see the different concentration of gases.
Photo by Stuck in Customs
Ice caps sparkling from the reflection of the sun, penguins resting... It was all so beautiful, and we are changing this. We are the ones who are ruining nature's beauty. The Antarctic ice cap is melting and animals are losing many homes. We don't want to live in a world like that. Sea level will rise from possible 60 to 65 meters! This means that we will see more drastic weather changes and more species of living organisms going extinct. What we do, ruins our nature. This increase in green house gases has caused a hole in the ozone layer which has increased climate around the world.
Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video
The winds produced by this climate change have caused a warming change to the western coast of Antarctica. This hasn’t ever happened before in the history of earth. Antarctica is separated in different parts: the south, north, west and Peninsula Antarctica. The West Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming areas on Earth! Sea ice is decreasing, with many horrible impacts on wildlife.
Photo by David Cook Wildlife Photography
Environmental change is most frequent in the Antarctic Peninsula, where climate change has been the largest. Adélie penguins, a species well adapted to sea ice conditions, have decreased in large numbers and been replaced by open-water species...
Photo by wili_hybrid
Affect on Wildlife
Scientists working in Antarctica have discovered a huge rise in sea temperature that threatens the populations of penguins, whales, seals and many other creatures within a few decades. Environmental change is most apparent in the Antarctic Peninsula, where climate change has been largest. Adélie penguins, a species well adapted to sea ice conditions, have reduced in numbers and been replaced by open-water species.
Weather Conditions
Antarctica has the lowest naturally occurring temperature ever recorded on the surface of the Earth: −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F). During the winter months on the coast the temperature is normally around -30 degrees. On the more high ground it is around -60 degrees. In summer it is temperatures between -20* and -5*. The strong winds are called Katabatics.
Photo by ChaoticMind75
If all ice sheets of Antarctica melted, the sea would rise from 200 feet! This would flood cities near coasts all around the world and drown islands. Antarctica has 90% of the worlds ice.
Photo by christine zenino
A cleaner future!
Antarctica is slowly fading away because of us. We are the ones who are killing homes of animals leaving them nowhere to go.
Photo by StormPetrel1
HOW CAN WE SAVE IT?
- Reduce global warming
- Ride a bike to school/walk
- Reduce amount of burning fossil fuels
- Throw trash in the bin
- Recycle
Photo by mags504
Untitled Slide
- Reduce water heating requirements
- Use less transport (Fly less)
- Stop acidifying the sea
- Avoid oil spills
Photo by cortto
