The wild inhabitants of the North Pole certainly include polar bears. They are found in the Arctic - the territory adjacent to the North Pole. The Arctic includes islands off the coast of North America and Eurasia, as well as the Arctic Ocean.
Kings of the North Pole
Many people associate the North Pole with polar bears. And it's not in vain! Even the name of these animals originates from the Greek language: "arktos" is a bear. It is the harsh Arctic that is the permanent habitat of the amazing and mysterious wanderers of the icy deserts. It is curious that polar bears quite easily find food and shelter among the endless ice, despite all the harsh conditions of this wild land.
Sometimes it also happens that bears on floating ice floes accidentally end up in Iceland or the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk. But this does not bother them at all. Traveling polar bears always return to their "home harbor", making long transitions by land and moving strictly to the north.
How do polar bears survive in ice?
The fact is that polar bears have all the necessary "adaptations" to exist in the conditions of endless ice. For example, their white fur is excellent at absorbing sunlight, which is worth its weight in gold at the North Pole. The bear's coat is hollow and contains air, which helps the animal to keep warm. In addition, a huge layer of subcutaneous fatty tissue in winter reaches 10 cm in thickness.
Other wild inhabitants of the North Pole
In general, the Arctic is a unique place. The fact is that quite interesting and not quite ordinary wild animals live here. These are musk oxen, reindeer, and bighorn sheep. You can list them all for a long time. It is necessary to dwell in more detail on the musk ox and the reindeer.
Musk oxen are very massive herbivores that inhabit the North Pole. Scientists believe that musk oxen appeared more than a million years ago and inhabited the entire north of Central Asia. A little later, they reached Siberia, England and France. About 100 years ago, musk oxen moved to North America along the isthmus of the modern Bering Strait. In Eurasia, these animals became extinct long ago, and in America they were completely exterminated by Eskimo hunters.
In 1917, the Canadian government decided to rescue endangered musk oxen. Today there are reserves in which these animals are protected by environmental laws. A little less than 10 thousand of these animals live in the reserves of Canada. Another 6 thousand musk oxen live in Greenland.
Reindeer is a herbivorous inhabitant of the North Pole, to which almost all northern peoples owe their existence. The fact is that the reindeer feeds them, clothe them, and is also simply a unique "vehicle" of movement in the northern off-road conditions.
Reindeer is a very large herbivore found in Scandinavia, Greenland and Siberia. At the same time, both domestic and wild reindeer can be found in this area.
