If I took a small groupd of either polars bears or penguins, enough to make a viable population, and moved them to the other pole, would they survive? Or die out?
Subscribing to thread, as I kept meaning to ask this myself over the years and always forgot to do so.
Well, first, penguins don’t live at the South Pole- some live in Antarctica, true, but far from the South pole. Others live much farther north, even in places like Australia, Argentina and South Africa. Harsh conditions, yes- but not quite polar.
And polar bears don’t live so far north as the North Pole either.
That said, could a colony of penguins survive in, say, coastal Alaska? Probably. There’s plenty of food in the waters off Alaska, and the conditions would be no harsher than those most penguion species are already used to.
Could polar bears survive in the Antarctic? I’d say so, as long as they stuck to the coastal regions. There are seals in and around the coastal waters, probably enough to keep the bears fed.
And they’d eat the penguins. I hadn’t thought of that…
Not if you moved them all to the north pole… :dubious:
Antarctica is significantly colder than the Arctic, due to that big-ass continent parked there. But I suspect there are at least regions of coast where polar bears could get by. Maybe.
How much worse are conditions in the South pole coastal regions that the bears regular domain? I know polar bears are tough (probably the toughest land animal in a fight in my book, but that’s another topic) but I get the idea the South Pole can make the North Pole feel like Cancun.
I think the fact that there are no land mammals whatsoever in Antarctica may give you some indicator of the relative harshness of the environment. However, that would give introduced polar bears a pretty big edge for a while, as the lack of land predators means the local fauna aren’t used to dealing with them. I’d guess that polar bears would do OK in the coastal regions for several generations at least, but I’m not sure how the local ecosystem would cope or how they would deal with extreme events (i.e. very cold years, etc).
For a really good doco on Antarctica check out david attenborough’s “Life in the Freezer”. There are penquins, but not polar bears … I believe it can be downloaded from [link deleted]
I think it would be fun to add more kinds of animals to Antarctica. I know some people are hung up on the “purity” of a biota and not want to introduce “invasive species”, but I figure that’s exactly what’s been happening for billions of years and some species lose and some win, but that’s how species begin and die out anyway.
So, why not be there to watch when it happens? Bring in reindeer and arctic fox and walrus and … whatever else would make it. More kinds of birds too. And maybe plants for them to eat that currently exist in the north only.
Penguins is pracitally chickens.
I have it at home! Someone gave this to me for my birthday and I love it…I believe penguins return to habitual nesting sites year after year. So that might be a problem.
Because our species might be one of the losers?
There’s you go, acting like a total speciest. For shame! Let go of your prejudice!
This of course would be utter idiocy. As Futile Gesture says, the reason we should refrain from such rank stupidity is because that would be very likely to cause the loss of many species, and that would be a loss to humanity introducing exotic animals very frequently has caused or contributed to the extinction of local species, especially in isolated places.
Introducing Arctic Fox, Polar Bears, or other predators to Antarctica, for example, would have great potential to cause the extinction of Emperor Penguins, which would have little defense against them while nesting. I hate to think of the devastation that just one Polar Bear might cause to a penguin colony. It is for exactly this reason that sled dogs are no longer used in Antarctica.
You may not consider the extinction of a species as fascinating and beautiful as the Emperor Penguin to be any great loss, but I for one would - as I think most people would. And there might not even be long term survival of the predator either - once they had eaten all the easy pickings, they would likely starve to death themselves.
Species evolve and die out all the time naturally, it is true, but it’s incontrovertible that humans have caused the extinction of many species in the recent past. It will take tens of thousands, if not millions of years before speciation replenishes what has been lost. We are diminishing the richness and the beauty of the world that we ourselves inhabit, and that will not be restored for a very long time, if ever. That is a loss to ourselves and our descendents.
Some penguins live in climates that aren’t harsh at all: you mention South Africa and Australia; there’s also New Zealand. And one species (the Galapagos penguin) is found at the equator, meaning it spends some of its time in the northern hemisphere.
Life being as adaptable as it is, I would be very surprised if land-based predators could survive long-term in Antartica. Antartica has been fairly stable for a while (in evolutionary terms), and it’s big enough that I think if there was a viable niche, something would have filled it by now.
I don’t remember details of penguin life, but don’t they basically spent half the year on icebergs/floes in drifting in open water? A polar bear/fox would get mighty hungry waiting around six months for the penguins to return.
As for penguins in the Arctic, I suppose it’s possible, as long as they could figure out how to keep away from the Polar Bears and foxes.
Not really. The main reason there are no land animals is because there is no land or ice bridge warmer continents, and the closest continents are too far away and oriented wrong to allow the evolution of polar species anyway.
Remember there almost certainly wouldn’t have been any polar bears or other mammals in their current arctic range at the height of the last ice age. The ice was simply to thick for them to fish or to allow seals, caribou etc to survive. The mammals then would have moved south and when the climate warmed were able to migrate north into arctic regions again.
Antarctica also suported mammal populations once, but repeated ice ages scoured the continent. With no connected temperate landmasses to recolonise from, land mammals were never able to regain a foothold. The problem isn’t just that the climate is so harsh they can’t live there now, the problem is that it was too harsh some time in the half million years.
See above. Antarctica hasn’t been particularly more stable than any other area of the world. And being located so far south the effects of cooling events is quite dramatic enough to scour it of land mammal populations just as the northern arctic regions are regularly scoured.
The 10, 000 years since the last ice age ended simply isn’t long enough for land based predators to evolve, and lacking any ice or land connection to warmer landmasses there is no opportunity for colonisation.
It really doesn’t matter how big a landmass is, if it gets sterilised evey 10, 000 years and there is no way for the animals to migrate to lower latitudes then it will never develop land-based life.
True, but Antarctica is also the home to numerous seal species. The bears seem to survive without eating penguins in their native range so I can’t see why they wouldn’t manage here.
Watching this Life In the Freezer, the general point was that land mammals can’t live on Antartica because it freezes over for the winter. Seals, etc., all move to the small islands that remain beyond the frost line. The water freezes solid. The only penguin that has its breeding cycle revered, i.e. not rushing to get it done in the short summers, is the Emperor Penguin. Every other creatures rushes through breeding and then has a mad rush to get to to outlying islands.
Again, from Life in the Freezer, yes, Antartica is almost completely deserted in the winter months. It is not technically “home” to any seal species…they come there for breeding purposes (and eat lots of penguins while they do it - sniffle!) but then they return to warmer climes such as the islands I have mentioned. I don’t know much about polar bears, but you need a creature that can swim long distances regularly. Nearly every creature in the Antartic has to swim or fly extremely long distances to get by…every spring/fall and in-between constantly to find food. Most of the creatures feed from the sea, and a land mammal just wouldn’t have that much to eat and no place to go come winter.