Are there any penguins in the Arctic?

Penguin is a kind of flightless bird, like wearing a forked suit, walking wobbly and naive, there are 9 kinds of penguins in nature, but most of the unbearable ice and snow is the home of penguins. Snow-covered Antarctica is the main place for penguins to live and breed. Let's take a look at whether there are penguins in the North Pole.

Are there any penguins in the Arctic?

There are no penguins in the Arctic. The reason why penguins do not continue northward into the northern hemisphere may be that penguins cannot stand tropical warm water, and the northernmost limit of the distribution is very consistent with the connection of the area with an annual average temperature of 20 ℃. Warm equatorial currents and higher temperatures form a natural barrier that prevents penguins from crossing the equator northward. Penguins must stay in the sea where water is melted by snow and ice from Antarctica or colder currents from the deep sea. At present, there are about 20 species of penguins in the world, all distributed in the southern hemisphere, with the Antarctic continent as the center, as far north as the southern tip of Africa, South America and Oceania, mainly along the coast of the continent and some islands.

Why are there no penguins in the North Pole?

Some scientists believe that this should start with their ancestors, who were tube-nosed animals that developed from areas south of the equator and decided where their main homes were when they decided on the direction of their development. Zoologists speculate that at that time the penguins chose to go south instead of moving northward because the hot tropical climate blocked the way northward, especially because they could not stand the warm tropical water. The physiological characteristics of penguins determine that they must stay in areas where snow and ice from Antarctica melt or colder currents from the deep sea flow through. Such warm equatorial currents and higher temperatures form a physical barrier that prevents heat-fearing penguins from swimming through it. Then check the distribution of penguins, the northernmost limit of their distribution is the area with an annual average temperature of 20 degrees, which is quite consistent with the guess of zoologists.

Have penguins ever existed in the Arctic?

Archaeologists have found an extinct bird skeleton in the Arctic, which is very similar to penguins. The researchers call them "big penguins". The big penguins are about 60 centimeters tall, comparable in size to El-Adli penguins, the largest population in Antarctica. The head is brown, the back feathers are black, and the abdomen is snow-white. Their skeletal structure shows that they also walk clumsily and waddle, and they are also good at swimming in the sea, just like modern penguins. The coastal areas of Scandinavia in Europe, Canada and northern Russia, as well as all Arctic and industrial Arctic islands are the main distribution areas of large penguins, and have been in the millions.

Giant penguins feed on the sea and breed on land, and are threatened by both marine and terrestrial predators, but their poor defense ability makes them lose miserably in the competition for survival with later developed mammals, and is swallowed in large quantities. The surviving penguins are also limited to coasts or islands that are less affected by predators. However, humans have deprived them of their last chance of survival in the northern hemisphere.

When early humans invaded the Arctic, the peaceful life of the big penguins began to suffer some damage. The big penguins were also discovered by the Vikings about 1000 years ago. They also found that the animal was almost covered with treasures, and to their delight, penguins did not have any resistance to humans. So humans began to hunt and kill big penguins.

Three or four hundred years ago, Europe set off an upsurge of exploration to the Arctic. At the same time, human beings, driven by greedy desire, carried out wild hunting and killing of these innocent animals. Large penguins in Greenland, Eliza-Queen Islands and other places have been forced to have nowhere to live, and their numbers have plummeted, eventually leading to the "extermination of penguins". On June 2, 1844, the last two penguins in the Northern Hemisphere were killed on an island in Hainan, Ireland. Now, with the exception of occasional remains for humans to mourn, penguins can no longer be found in the Arctic.