Introduction
Antarctica is the most hostile and forbidding place on Earth. Scott, famously called it `this awful place’, and although the continent of Antarctica is covered in ice and snow, the Southern Ocean that surrounds the continent, is teeming with wildlife, one of the richest sources in the world.
Southern Ocean map
The Southern Ocean covers 36 million sq km to the south of the Antarctic Polar Front or Antarctic Convergence. The exact position of the Polar Front changes from year to year but it is always found between 50 and 60 degrees South. When you cross it going south, you are entering the Southern Ocean, the roughest, windiest, most unpredictable ocean in the world.
In addition to its stormy nature, each winter the Southern Ocean freezes over to form extensive sea ice. At its peak 20 million km of ice is produced and the presence of ice strongly influences the natural cycle in Antarctica as nearly all the region’s wildlife obtains its food from the sea. This means that despite the low temperatures, ocean life, like fish and whales, live alongside animals and birds that need the sea for their existence like penguins and seals and this creates a highly unique marine ecosystem.
Through this fact file, we are going to look at the extraordinary wildlife of Antarctica and show how it interacts to form food chains and explain how the marine, bird and mammal life survive in one of the harshest climates on earth.
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Southern Ocean Life Navigation
Quick Facts
Introduction <<
Antarctic Marine Ecosystem
Sea Life
Fish
Birds
Penguins
Seals
Antarctic Wildlife & The Environment
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