The Arctic is the area around the North Pole. Although you can walk to the North Pole, you are really just walking on ice. There is no land beneath you, which is unlike the South Pole that has a continent called Antarctica underneath all that ice and snow. A wider variety of animals live in the Arctic region than on Antarctica, because three different continents extend into the Arctic region. These continents are North America, Europe and Asia. The snowshoe rabbit. What is that extra-thick layer of fat called? Blubber. Animals that originally lived in the warmer parts of these three continents slowly drifted north in search of food. Over the years they developed very heavy fur or extra layers of fat to keep them warm. Another common trait of many of the animals of the Arctic is the color white. Rabbits and baby seals are white so that predators cannot see them hiding in the snow. Polar bears and foxes are white so that the rabbits and baby seals can't see them coming toward them in the snow. The arctic fox is white, not red. Snow can be very difficult to walk on, because it crushes down when you step on it. Man invented snowshoes, which are very wide shoes that look like tennis rackets. This distributes the weight over a large area, and allows a person to walk easily on top of the snow. The wolf has much more fur to keep warm. Many of the animals have developed this "snowshoe" trait on their own, such as the rabbits, wolves and bears of the north whose feet are extra wide. The feet are also commonly covered with hair on the soles of their feet, which is effective in maintaining a good grip even on slick icy surfaces. The hairy musk ox, suited for the arctic. How does the musk ox defend the babies when danger is near? They form a circle with the babies in the middle. The musk ox is actually more closely related to the goat than to an ox, but the horns look like ox horns, and it is a larger animal than goats. Obviously it is protected from the cold by its long shaggy hair. Because the musk ox is neither predator nor prey, the musk ox does not need a white coat, and thus has a brown coat of fur. A brown coat absorbs more heat from the sun, which adds to its ability to withstand the cold. The musk ox lives in a large group, which helps ward off predators. Whenever a predator gets too close, they form a circle with all the baby musk oxen protected inside the center. Their diet is vegetarian, and in the winter they have to paw away the snow to get at the grass underneath. Although animals are scarcer in the Arctic region than most other places on Earth, people have continued to chase them for their fur or just for hunting trophies. The polar bear is popular among the trophy hunters, and the baby seal's fur is popular for clothing. Many animals have died because of these human desires. The small lemming from Norway. The lemming is a furball, seen above in the short arctic springtime. It hides in rocks, and is related to mice and other rodents. The most amazing story concerning the little lemming is that it used to be a common belief that lemmings would throw themselves off the edges of cliffs into the ocean and swim off to their death. A film crew tried to film some of the lemmings doing this, but they were unsuccessful. Finally the photographers decided to buy some large plywood boards and herd the lemmings off of a cliff so that they could get the shot. And they did. And hundreds of lemmings fell to their death. Only later did zoologists determine that lemmings don't throw themselves off the cliffs. It was all just a myth. A cute baby seal. But the myths are slowly dying out as people learn more and more about these wonderful animals. And as our clothing market moves away from animal pelts, all animals have less to fear from humans - and that is good. Return to the Polar regions.