Plant and wildlife
The largest land animal in the Arctic is the polar bear. Polar bears are extremely dangerous and can kill a person with the swipe of a paw. Other land animals in the Arctic include reindeer, wolves, hares, foxes and caribou. Arctic waters are abundant with fish and in the summer they provide a rich feeding ground for whales, seals, walruses and birds. There are no penguins in the Arctic as they only live south of the Equator.
polar bear tracks and polar bear by Donn Craig
Summer in the tundra also sees the bare landscape of ice transformed with a carpet of mosses, flowering plants and lichens. This attracts the grazing wildlife, such as lemmings and caribou, which in turn catch the eye of the hunting wildlife, such as the Arctic fox.
The largest land animal in Antarctica is a mite, about 1mm long. However, despite the cold, the Southern Ocean is full of life. Whales, seals, penguins, birds and fish can be found in Antarctica. Mosses, fungi and lichens are the only plant life to be found in Antarctica. They survive by being slow growing, so a patch of moss the size of a football could be hundreds of years old.
King Penguins courtesy of HMS Endurance
Crabeater Seals by Melinda Kolk
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Poles apart - Antarctica and the Arctic 