Rock Hopper Penquin

● One of the more of the ornate penguins, the Rock Hopper stands 16 to 18 inches talland weighs about 5 to 6 pounds.

Adelie Penguin

● The Adelies courtship ceremony begins when a male drops a pebble at the feet of his intended. They begin to fight, but uf the female is interested, the flight is very short.

Blue Whale

● Named for its blue- gray color, this huge cetacean may grow to be roughly 100 feet long and weigh more than 120 tons! A blue whale eats about 4 tons of krill during feeding season!

Ross Seal● Ross Seals are very

rarley seen because they live deep within th consolidated pack-ice. It is belived that Ross Seals fead mainly on squid and, to a lesser extent, fish and krill.

Southern Elephant Seal

● Largest of all pinnepeds. The elephant seal gets its name from the long, curved nose the male acquires around the age of three.

Normal Tempreatures

Antarctica's normal temperatures are -70 and – 35 degrees.

Highest Temperature

Antarctica's highest temperature is 14.6 degrees.

Worlds lowest temperature

In 1974 Antarctica the worlds lowest temperture was reported and was -89.6 degrees!

Why do science in Antrctica??

Remote, isolated, and frozen all year, Antarctica ia arguably the most untouched and undisturbed

regoin on the planet. Science in antarctica offers many advantages over abywhere else on earth.

For example:

Antartica has the cleanest air in the world allowing air quality monitring with a reliable baseline.

Antarctica is the darkest place on earth, an ideal setting for astronomical research.

Studying the bottom of the food chain allows scientists of better inderdtand environmental

inpacts on humans.

Antarctica has no borders, allowung research findings to be freely available to everyone. Also

many projects are internationally coordinated and supported without any 'home turf' issues.

The extreme conditions make Antarctica a habitat in which only the hardiest can survive.

Very few speicies have been recorded on the 2 % of the continent that is ice free. They inclued about

150 lichens, 30 mosses, some fungi and one liverwort.

Plants

Higher Plants

Only two native vascular plants, the Antarctic hair grass Deschampsia antarctica and a cushion-forming

pearlwort, Colobanthus quitensis, survive south of 56°S. They occur in small clumps near the shore of the west

coast of Antarctic Peninsula. This is in marked contrast to the Arctic regions where nearly 100 flowering plants are found at 84°N. Both plants can tolerate very cold and dry

conditions. They continue to function at freezing point, when the rate at which they convert sunlight into

chemical energy drops to about 30 to 40 per cent of that reached during the most favourable conditions .

Thank You For Listening