#文章首发挑战赛#
Text: Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
Editor|Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
[Preface]
If you want to say what the symbol of Antarctica is, we must all say that it is penguins, as a representative of "Antarctic cute things", penguins have always been loved by people.
Recently, Harbin's "truant penguins" have become popular all over the Internet, and everyone may have been asked the same question in the face of penguins, that is, why are penguins not eaten by polar bears?
Of course, we all know this answer now, because polar bears live in the Arctic, and there are no penguins in the Arctic at all, so the Arctic and the Antarctic are extremely cold weather, so why are there no penguins in the Arctic?
In fact, there have been penguins in the Arctic, but someone brought penguins to the Arctic manually, and an explorer once released 69 penguins in the Arctic, so what is the final outcome?
【Penguin's living environment and characteristics】
One of the symbols of Antarctica is the penguin, a region surrounded by the sea and the world's coldest, most inhospitable and windy "storm zone".
The average temperature here ranges from minus 30 degrees to minus 20 degrees, and at the coldest time, the actual temperature can even reach around minus 70 degrees.
In addition, the direct sunlight here in winter is very small, almost the coldest place on earth, and few creatures can adapt to the living environment here.
Penguins are one of these few creatures that can not only survive in such an environment, but also thrive here.
Because over a long period of evolution, penguins' body structure has evolved to be fully adapted to extremely cold weather, and what we consider to be beautiful and cute black and white colors is a "sharp weapon" for them to survive.
The black parts can be used to absorb sunlight to raise their body temperature, and the white parts can protect them from predators, and their feathers are very dense and soft, and they are one of the strongest insulators in the snow and ice.
In addition, the white salt tissue formed by the accumulation of excrement on the snow every day is also one of the energy sources that can help them produce body heat.
The penguin colony also does not eat throughout the winter, which is a huge guarantee for them to survive in such a harsh environment as Antarctica.
The Antarctic Peninsula is home to 80% of the penguin population, and the temperature in this area is about -5 degrees Celsius along the coastline.
The coastal mountains and coastlines of the outlying islands at minus 40 degrees Celsius are also home to penguins, sometimes resting in igloos and sometimes sheltering from the cold in stone "houses".
Penguins feed mainly on marine plankton such as Antarctic krill, and sometimes they also prey on small fish, squid, etc., and they can eat an average of 0.75 kg of food per day.
There are about 20 species of penguins in the world, all of which are distributed in the southern hemisphere, of which the largest number is the Adélie penguin, about 50 million, and the least is the emperor penguin, about 570,000.
【69 penguins released from the Arctic】
In 1936, the penguins brought to the Arctic by the seafaring explorer Lars Christen were emperor penguins, and when he arrived at the South Pole, he was attracted by the cute emperor penguins.
So he secretly took nine emperor penguins to the North Pole, and the explorer took very good care of them when they were in the North Pole.
The penguins quickly adapted to the Arctic environment with careful care, and Lars began to operate this "miracle" that spanned the north and south.
At first, it was interviewed and photographed by the media, and then it gradually attracted a lot of tourists to visit, and the local government would subsidize it, so Lars can be said to have made a lot of money.
But after the novelty passed, people gradually became less interested in these nine penguins, and this is not what Lars wanted to see, in order to retain people's curiosity, he brought in more than 60 new penguins from Antarctica.
There are two species of more than 60 new penguins, one is the Marco Roni penguin and the other is the Gentoo penguin, and a large part of the reason for choosing these two penguins is that their food is relatively easy to obtain in the Arctic.
In addition, the appearance of the three is also very different, which can attract people to come and admire, greatly improving and prolonging their viewing value.
But people's curiosity is still limited after all, and when the novelty of the three penguins fades, Lars has no source of income and gradually enters a state of making ends meet.
So in the end, he didn't care about the penguins he brought to the North Pole, and the Arctic is not without penguins, but the survival of penguins is affected by the food chains in the Arctic and Antarctica.
In the Arctic Circle, there are seals and sea lions in the sea, polar bears and arctic wolves on the ground, and vultures in the sky.
【Evolution of Penguins】
As a primitive bird, its ancestor may have been a flying seabird in the beginning, and the earliest penguin fossils were found in New Zealand.
In the study of penguin evolution, scientists have found that the penguin order is most closely related to the albatross of the shearland, whose ancestors probably appeared in the ancient Zealand region about 65 million years ago.
At that time, ancient Zealand was already outside the continent, but there was still a land bridge between the Antarctic continent and the South American continent, so the ancestors of penguins spread from the ancient Zealand area to the vicinity of the ancient land bridge.
Later, with the evolution of the earth, the land bridge was broken, and some of the remaining parts eventually formed the current Antarctic Peninsula, and for a long time afterward, penguins were mainly distributed in the surrounding waters such as ancient Zealand and the Antarctic Peninsula.
There were also many giant penguin colonies during this period, such as the 2-meter-tall Crested Penguin, which we all all know, appeared during this period.
Later, with further evolution and development, about 14 million years ago, a common ancestor of modern penguins appeared, first in ancient South America, and then spread to Antarctica.
Since then, the Earth's climate has changed dramatically, and penguins have evolved rapidly, with more branches appearing and their coverage gradually expanding.
[Why don't penguins live in the Arctic?]
In fact, over a long period of time, we will find that the size of penguins is getting smaller and smaller, and the body form has gradually evolved into characteristics that are more suitable for the marine environment.
These are the conditions in which extreme environments, combined with environmental events such as ice ages and climate fluctuations, contribute to the eventual adaptation of this species at high latitudes to the natural world.
The first reason why penguins do not go north is because most of the large predators are distributed in the northern hemisphere, such as the polar bear, arctic fox, and arctic wolf we mentioned earlier.
These three are the kind of penguins that can easily catch stupid penguins, and if you put polar bears in Antarctica, then I am afraid that there are no penguins in Antarctica.
There are two routes from the South Pole to the North Pole, one is the waterway from the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic, and the other is from South America to North America and then to the North Pole.
But either way, the risk is very high, and penguins are not adapted to walking long distances on land.
Krill is the main food of penguins, and although penguins can also eat other small fish, they mainly eat krill.
There is no krill in the Arctic environment, and the lack of this staple food will also affect the survival of penguins to a certain extent, and the animal's eating habits are finally formed in a long evolution, and it is difficult to change it rashly, so it is very likely to lead to the extinction of this species in the end.
Finally, the Arctic is dominated by glaciers and large flowing icebergs, and there is no complete landmass, and the Antarctic is a complete continental plate, although it is also a land of ice and snow.
Although penguins are marine creatures, they still live mainly on land, so penguins in the Arctic cannot survive.
【The real "Arctic penguin"】
In fact, there were originally "penguins" in the Arctic, and there used to be a species very similar to penguins on the coast of the North Atlantic called the great puffin.
It's not that they're the same species as penguins, it's just that they look very similar to penguins, and the name "penguin" was originally used to call this species.
The great puffin is about 70-80 cm tall, has a chubby body, and has black and white feathers like the penguins we know today, and most of the time it inhabits the water.
Their initial numbers were very large, and even if a polar bear invaded their territory, it did not cause the extinction of this species, and the species is still very vigorous.
This continued until the mid-16th century, when European sailors began to explore the seas, landing on the islands where the puffins were located, and capturing adult puffins and puffin eggs on a large scale.
In addition to feeding on puffins, its feathers and fat were also used as tools for profit, and as the food on the island became less and less, and more and more people caught them, the puffins gradually became extinct.
In fact, people realized that this species was about to become extinct, so they also launched an initiative to protect the great puffin, but not only did not achieve the desired results, but instead, it backfired, and in a chaotic scramble, the last "Arctic penguin" egg was crushed.
There are only about 80 specimens of this species in museums in Europe, which shows how seriously this species was killed in the first place.
After the extinction of this species, the term "penguin" was slowly used to refer to the current penguins, and in Antarctica, it can be described as a "utopia" for penguins to survive, and there is no more suitable place for penguins to live here.
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