Antarctica Animals

Antarctica Animals
Antarctica has an abundance of animal life, almost all of it being dependent on the sea, in fact the largest truly land animal is a wingless midge about 13mm / 0.5 of an inchlong. As the animal life is dependent on the sea and are mainly warm blooded, they tend to be pretty large as a survival technique against the extreme and relentless cold. That Antarctica can support suchan abundance of large animals is a result of the productivity of the southern polar sea.

Adélie Penguins
Pygoscelis adeliae

Average Weight: 5kg - 11lb - feels more than this though when you'veupset one and it's ran up and attacked you by hanging off your thigh with its beak, like 5 bags of sugar dangling from a pair of pliers attached to your leg.
Average Height: 70cm - 27.5inchesBreeding Season: November - February - Adélie penguin colonies are very loud, raucous, busy and smelly affairs. The call of an Adélie is as musical and gentle as a braying jackass and the whole colony isawash with guano (posh word for bird poop). When I was in Antarctica one thing I did was help with long-term surveys which entailed walking through the colony (terribly frowned upon these days). Eachnest is just over two pecking distances apart so the penguins can't reach each other. Of course walking through the middle meant that you were in range of everyone. I used to worry a lot about fallingover in a penguin colony, covered from head to toe in guano and pecked mercilessly.
Reproduction: Large colonies of up to half a million birds. Nests are lined with pebbles, and slightly higher thanthe surrounding land so that if the temperature rises and the snow melts, the nest is not flooded. The males arrive first on the nesting site at the beginning of the season and start the nest, thenboth partners work on the nest. Usually two eggs are laid, rarely three. Incubation of the first egg is 35 - 37 days, and the second chick is a few days behind the first. Male and female parent share...