Why are there no animals in Antarctica?

Answer 1

The distribution of all animals is a function of luck and history. Having everything you need is no guarantee of being able to reach any point on the globe once you are there because it may not be possible to get there in the first place.

Polar bears likely evolved very recently (about 200,000 years to possibly as long as 500,000 years ago) from brown bears somewhere off eastern Russia or the Alaskan Panhandle. They are totally dependent upon sea ice for their primary habitat for getting their food (mainly ringed seals and bearded seals). As the world's oceans never have been frozen from the north to the south, polar bears never have had the possibility to reach the Antarctic. Polar bears are strong swimmers but not strong enough to swim to the Antarctic.

Some species have wider distributions because their habitats were connected at some time in the distant past. For example, grizzly bears (a larger brown bear species) live in the USA, Canada, Russia, Spain, Italy and even Norway! They crossed over a land bridge between Russia and Alaska. The same is true for wolves, wolverines, lynx and many other species.

However, polar bears would really like the Antarctic. In the absence of polar bears, seals and penguins in the Antarctic are not afraid of predators (except leopard seals and killer whales). A polar bear would have a lot of fun and probably get very very fat! On the negative side, the seals and penguins would be devastated. Polar bears are really better off in the Arctic.

Answer 2

Because it is so far away from where they evolved from the brown bear. To get from the Arctic to the Antarctic at the other end of the world, they would have to make their way through hot parts of the globe and would not survive the hypothermia and they could not live in Antarctica with no other animals to eat.

Answer 3

The Antarctic continent is isolated and has been isolated from the rest of the continents for so long that animals that are not entirely marine have not been able to migrate there.

Further, the Arctic Polar Bear has evolved to be a specialist Arctic predator and it would not naturally survive in a tropical environment and thus could not make the journey south to the Antarctic (that is why polar beats are not found in more southern latitudes where other bear species flourish).

Thus, if there were the equivalent of polar bears in the Antarctic, they would have evolved there separately and would not be the same species.

Answer 4

They could live there, but it would be wrong to introduce them as they would decimate the penguin population and would change the whole ecology of the region.

Answer 5

Antarctica is too cold for animals to survive and there is no food chain for them there.