You may have come across video games or story books featuring polar bears and penguins together. In reality, these animals cannot meet in the wild. Why can’t they meet? And, if they can’t, why are they featured together? Let’s find out.
Photographs and videos show polar bears and penguins invariably surrounded by ice. That’s because polar bears and most penguins inhabit Polar Regions, which are dominated by ice cover. But you’ll never find them together in the wild.
And that’s because they live near two different poles. While polar bears are found in the Arctic near the North Pole, most species of penguins live in the Antarctic region near the South Pole. Which is why these two animals can never meet in the wild? Since photographs and videos almost always show them in ice-dominant habitats, this could be the reason they have been misrepresented in story books, games, etc. as sharing a common space.
However, despite literally being poles apart, their plight today is quite similar. Both of them live in regions that suffer continuous, extensive, and increasing melting of sea ice. This is because “the high Arctic and the Antarctic peninsula have seen bigger temperature increases than anywhere else on earth”. Sea ice is integral to the survival of polar bears and many penguin species.
In addition to climate change-include melting, habitat loss/degradation also affects both these animals.
Picture Credit : Google