Fun facts
I got this video from YouTube, once I typed Emperor
Penguins. It's URL is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfstYSUscBc&feature=player_detailpage |
Only one warm blooded animal lives in Antarctica in the winter: the Emperor Penguin. The females lay one egg in June, then spend the winter at sea, whilst the males stay on land surviving terrible weather for 9 weeks, WITHOUT FOOD!
There is an absurd group of fish in Antarctica, called the ice fish. They have no red pigment in their blood to carry oxygen around. They survive without it, because the climate is so low, and oxygen dissolves better in cold temperatures. They have a bigger volume of clear blood instead and this gives them a ghostly white colour. |
Antarctica was discovered in 1820 and the first man to first set foot on it was in 1895. It was done by Henryk Bull, with a party from a whaling ship. It was 1935 when the first woman set foot on Antarctica and her name was Catherine Mikkelson and she was the wife of a Norwegian whaling captain.
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50 million years ago, Antarctica was warm, including evergreen forests and many more animals. As the ice cap formed most of the animals died. Evidence of this warm temperature is in the fossils of plants, including ferns found by scientists.
85 million years ago, Australia started separating from Antarctica at a pace of a few millimetres a year. It soon became 7 centremetres a year, ending in fully separating 30 million years ago. |