SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2010
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from The Mini Page © 2010 Universal Uclick More Arctic Animals Seals
Many of the seals in the Arctic depend on ice floes to rest, breathe and have babies. They are known as ice seals.
Some kinds of Arctic seals can hold their breath for about 15 minutes underwater as they hunt fish. The ringed seal spends most of its life under the ice. It digs breathing holes in the ice with its claws. Many northern fur seals migrate by sea about 5,000 miles each year, swimming from the Bering Sea nearly to Mexico.
This polar bear mom walks with her cubs. Polar bears
This ribbon seal mom and her pup rest on an ice floe. Ribbon seals live in the open waters of the Bering Sea in the summer and on ice floes in the winter.
from The Mini Page © 2010 Universal Uclick Ready Resources
The Mini Page provides ideas for websites, books or other resources that will help you learn more about this week’s topics.
On the Web:
•
http://arctic.fws.gov/50kids.htm •
http://arctic.fws.gov/wildlife_habitat.htm •
www.arctic.noaa.gov
At the Library:
• “Arctic Fox: Very Cool!” (Uncommon Animals) by Stephen Person
• “Here Is the Arctic Winter” (Web of Life) by Madeleine Dunphy • “Arctic Tale” by Rebecca Baines
TM
The Arctic is the only place where polar bears live in the wild. They are specially adapted for that habitat. Their black skin absorbs the sun’s heat. Their hollow hairs are filled with air, which helps keep them warm, as do their layers of fat. Their huge paws spread out their weight to help them walk on thin ice. Bears wait on the ice to hunt seals, pouncing when the seals come up to breathe. But because the polar ice is melting, bears have to swim farther between ice floes. Sometimes they don’t make it.
Musk oxen
During the Ice Age, musk oxen lived as far south as Kansas. They are happy in the cold. They dig through the snow for plants to eat. If predators are chasing musk oxen, they run together. They always turn to face their enemies. If there is one enemy, the musk oxen form a line. If there are a group of enemies, such as a pack of wolves, the musk oxen form a circle so some of them are always facing whatever is coming at them.
© 2010 Universal Uclick Animals of the Arctic
Did you know that Santa and his elves have a lot of furry and feathery company at the North Pole? Animals who live in the Arctic have found many ways of adapting to the limited sunlight, ice, snow and freezing temperatures in that frigid climate. The Mini Page talked with a wildlife expert at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to learn more about these amazing animals.
What is the Arctic?
Musk oxen have two layers of hair to keep them warm. Outer hairs shed snow and water. The inner layer insulates them.
from The Mini Page © 2010 Universal Uclick Arctic Animals TRY ’N FIND
Words that remind us of Arctic animals are hidden in the block below. Some words are hidden backward or diagonally. See if you can find: ARCTIC, BLUBBER, CARIBOU, CLIMATE, CUB, ENERGY, FREEZING, FUR, HARE, HIBERNATE, ICE, INSULATION, MIGRATE, MUSK OXEN, NORTH, POLAR, POLE, REINDEER, SEAL, SNOW, SURVIVE, WOLF.
HAVE YOU SEEN A POLAR BEAR?
P S H T R O N R E E D N I E R K O N W E C I U O B I R A C F S M L O O S R E B B U L B C R U I A E W L E Y G R E N E L E R G R F F F F A P O L A R I E V R C U G B U C L E R A H M Z I A T R E T A N R E B I H A I V T I N E X O K S U M K H T N E E C N O I T A L U S N I E G
The North Pole is as far north as you can go on the Earth. The Arctic (AHRK-tik) is the area around the North Pole. In the Arctic, the sun doesn’t rise in the winter and doesn’t set in the summer.
Very little of the sun’s energy reaches the Arctic. Sunlight seems to stretch out across the land. It only shines from low in the sky, even in the summer. The
sun’s rays provide little light or heat. Animals have to
struggle to find enough food in the winter. Survival strategies
Animals have four main ways to survive in the Arctic. Some use more than one strategy. 1. Animals leave. Some wildlife, especially birds such as ducks and geese, migrate. In the winter, they can’t find enough food, so they go south. They return north in the summer when food is available. 2. Animals hibernate. When it turns super cold, some animals can slow down their metabolism (muh-TAB-uh- liz-uhm). Metabolism is the way living things use energy to operate. Some animals, such as grizzly bears, go into a kind of deep sleep. Others slow down their activities.
December 19, 2010 from The Mini Page © 2010 Universal Uclick Living Near the North Pole
The polar bear spends most of its life on ice floes, or sheets of drifting ice. Pregnant females dig dens in the snow and ice. These dens are much warmer than the frigid ice floes. Babies are born without fur, so they have no protection against the cold. The mothers keep them safe in the warmer dens. They might dig the dens in snow and ice on shore, or in snowdrifts on sea ice.
3. Animals use insulation. Insulation (in-suh-LAY-shun) is material that helps keep in heat. Some animals have insulation, such as fur, on the outside of their bodies. Some animals have inside insulation, such as layers of thick fat called blubber, under their skin.
4. Animals find warmer places in the Arctic. For example, lemmings live and eat in tunnels under the snow. The snow insulates them from cold air.
The Arctic tern migrates between the Arctic and Antarctica, about a 44,000-mile round trip each year.
photo by Kirk Rogers, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
photo courtesy NOAA National Marine Mammal Laboratory
photo by Susanne Miller, courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
photo by Kathy Crane, courtesy NOAA Arctic Research Program
Basset Brown The News Hound’s
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