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[Danielle] The Arctic and Subarctic. It doesn't get much colder than this.
To say it's a challenge to live this far north is a massive understatement.
Few animals have what it takes to survive here.
The region's ecosystems are defined by their snow, ice, and tundras.
The earth here is frozen, and
food is scarce, especially during the frigid winters.
For most mammals
, living in such extreme conditions is simply impossible.
But those that do live here,
live dangerously.
[soft squeaking]
[sniffing]
They
're at constant risk of starvation, hypothermia, and being eaten by predators.
It's a non-s
top struggle. Amazingly, a handf
ul of species have managed to makea life in this inhospitable environment,
and it's all thanks to millions of years
of evolution.
They had to adapt or die, and those who have survived
did so in some of the most amazing ways
in the natural world.
♪
I'm Danielle Dufault, a wildlife expert at Animalogic,
and a scientific illustrator.
Oop, I got you!
He's so heavy! [laughs]
I just got knocked over by a baby wombat.
Growing up in northern
Quebec, I've always been fascinated by the animals
that are able to thrive in harsh winters.
To understand the science behind how these animals
cope with the cold, I'm travelling around the world
to see them up close.
So, what is it that gi
ves these special species a shot at survival?
Take the Arctic fox. It has all of usual features of cold-weather land mammals: compact limbs,
a thick fur coat, and very little exposed skin.
But what really
sets them apart is that internal chemistry.
They have the biological equivalent
of antifreeze blood.
Today, we're in Churchill, Manitoba,
home of the polar bear,
looking for its unlikely occasional companion,
the Arctic fox.
This frigid landscape,
on the west side of Canada's Hudson Bay,
has an average winter temperature of -25°C
with some days getting as cold
as -45 degrees.
It is no home for the weak.
Without proper gear, a person
could develop hypothermia in as little as five minutes.
Welcome to the set of Animalogic.
[sprightly music]
Today, we are blessed by the presence
of this beautiful Arctic fox.
These canids are relatively small,
at about 60 cm in length,
and weighing just over three kg.
They're just s
lightly larger than a chihuahua.
And yet, they can survive in the expanse of the arctic.
♪
So, how do they survive in one of the coldest
and most unforgiving climates on Earth?
Well, through a multi-pronged survival strategy.
The first, an
d most crucial part, is being really, really, really good at withstanding the cold.
Even at extreme temperatures, Arctic foxes can keep
warm due to their multilayered pelage.
About 70% of it
is a fine underfur that acts similar to down on birds.
Even the pads on their toes are covered in fur,
a feature that gives them a rabbit-like appearance.
Their scientific name, vulpes lagopus, means hare-footed fox,
as this furry pad adaptation is unique among canids.
Fur alone doesn't keep you warm, and usually heat
gets lost through the skinniest parts of your body.
To avoid this, Arctic foxes have short snouts, ears,
legs, and tails.
You can see that her ears are actually v
ery short and round, and that's one of the key adaptations
that helps her hold on to her heat.
Long ears are a little too good at radiating heat
outwards, so if they're shorter and rounder,
they help her hold on to that heat closer to her body.
Her le
gs are also a lot shorter than other species of foxes, which again, helps retain the heat
close to her body.
During cold snaps, they basically roll themselves
into a ball to minimize heat loss.
But the Arctic fox's coo
lest cold-fighting adaptation is something called
countercurrent blood circulation.
This is basically a mechanism that keeps
the fox's paws at a lower temperature than its core.
Blood entering the paws is u
sed to heat up the blood that's leaving, which prevents the fox's core
from being cooled down by losing
heat out of its extremities.
But just like Thanos, extreme cold in the arctic
is... inevitable.
But Arctic foxes can withstand it like nobody else.
Their metabolic ra
te doesn't go up until it's -50, and they don't even start shivering
until it's -70°C,
which is as cold as it gets in the Arctic.
Only the barren plateaus of Antarctica get colder than this.
By s
lowing down their metabolic rate in the cold,their food will digest slower and their bodies
will store sugars and fats longer.
But it's no guarantee they won't starve.
Food is scarce in a harsh Arctic winter.
All of this sounds l
ike problems that other animals would solve by being bigger,
but being large is energetically expensive,
and for most of the year,
there isn't much to eat around here.
During the summer, when their fur turns brown to help
them blend in with their environment,
the pressure is on to eat as much as possible.
On an average day, an Arctic fox wi
ll patrol the beach during low tide to hunt for fish
and invertebrates caught in tide pools.
[squawking]
Waterfowl provide ample feeding opportunities.
Nesting birds and their eggs are taken with such gusto
that a single Arctic fox can consume over 1,000 eggs
in a single season.
Voles and lemmings are also heavily consumed
when available, but these species go through
boom and bust periods, and are usually only readily
available every three to four years.
But when they're abundant, they make up to 70%
of the fox's diet.
Arctic fox's ears
are adapted to hear the frequencyof their prey's chirps and steps under the snow,
and then, they strike,
diving headfirst into the snow to ambush their prey.
Foxes are universally known as being smart and resourceful.
Arctic foxes are no exception.
They figured out that by living in the Subarctic,
they can refrigerate their food by simply burying it
in the snow!
Saving foo
d for the lean months can be a literal lifesaver.
Some of the caches are huge
and in some cases they can
hold over a 100 birds, most commonly petrels and auklets.
By the end of fall, they
will have increased their weight by up to 50%, but that doesn't mean they
can just wait it out until spring.
Even when they have food stashes, finding food is a year-round challenge.
But everything is much harder in the winter.
In the northern part
of their range, the sun sets in late November and doesn't rise again until January.
During those long, dark days,
temperatures dip into the -40s.
If they ca
n't find anything to eat, they won't see the sun rise again and they will die in the dark.
One of their survival strategies is to follow
this ecosystem's apex predator,
and hope to eat its leftovers.
Polar bears are seal specialists,
and once they catch one,
they make sure to eat all the fat,
which is premium bear fuel.
Muscles and other soft tissues are sometimes
left behind, and that's when Arctic foxes come in.
It's sort of a free meal,
but it means travelling vast distances.
They've been seen as far as 800 km away
from the nearest landmass,
and about 150 km from the North Pole.
And beyond that, it means being exposed to lots
of predators such as wolves, wolverines, eagles,
owls, and even domestic dogs.
[barking]
Unfortunately, three out of four Arctic foxes
don't make it past their first winter, and in adults,
the mortality rate is still very high at about 33%.
Thos
e who do survive the winter go back to theirhome ranges for the most beautiful time of the year:
mating season!
Foxes are monogamous an
d live in labyrinthine dens and tunnels, which can be up to 1,000 square metres.
Dens are reused every year, and some have been
reported to be over 100 years old.
The largest ones have dozens of chambers
and close to 100 entrances.
These furry real estate m
oguls are usually monogamous, but sometimes live with extended family groups.
This is most common in the southern part
of their range, where food is more abundant.
Becaus
e of their high mortality rate, these cuties produce a fox-ton of babies.
The record for bigg
est litter is 22, which is one of the largest of all mammals.
♪
Parents feed them until summer, but after that,
they're forced to go out and become independent.
Females sometimes stay nearby,
but males have to go far away, sometimes up to 200 km away
from their native range.
Males defend their territory aggressively and mark it with bodily fluids on conspicuous places,
such as mounds of polar bear poo,
an unorthodox but effective pedestal.
Another of their unique features
is their colour-changing fur, which is chocolate
in the summer and vanilla in the late fall.
The colour changes
help them camouflage better, be it on the brown tundra, or on the white ice.
But unfortunately,
all of these adaptations made their fur too desirable.
As recently as the late '70s, over 40,000 Arctic foxes
were being taken every year.
This, combined with climate change, and diseases,such as rabies, have led to dwindling numbers.
As the permafrost melts,
red foxes, which are twice as big as their northern cousins, are also moving
northward and taking over the Arctic fox's domain.
Bu
t thankfully, their range is enormous, and because they reproduce so quickly,
there are still enough foxes
to consider them a species of least concern.
The Arctic fox's layered pelage is vital
to its survival in the cold.
But what about animals who weren't blessed
with a luxurious fur coat?
How can they kee
p warm and fashionable? In a stunning case of convergent evolution,
these birds have evolved most of the adaptations
that keep mammals safe,
and with some stylish boots to match.
[squawking]
[Danielle] Driving around the frigid tundra,
you're bound to find cold weather specialists:
Arctic hares
with their thick coats and almost perfectly spherical shape.
Marmots working on their dens, where they wait out the winter.
Majestic snowy owls qu
ietly searching for their next meal.
But the weirdest
of them all is a little birdwith the oddest legs in the Arctic.
These strange
birds are a staple of the Canadian Subarctic.
When
we're out filming wildlife,I love scoping out local birds.
And being here, I couldn't miss seeing
the infamous mammal-legged bird, the ptarmigan.
Ptarmigans belong to the same family as chickens, though they're more closely related to grouse.
There are only three types of ptarmigans:
the white-tailed ptarmigan,
found only in the western part of North America,
and the widespread willow and rock ptarmigan,
which live in the northern parts
of Eurasia and North America.
Bu
t we're in the home of the transformers of the bird world, the willow and rock ptarmigans.
This a
rea, with freezing cold temperatures that reach -40°C,
snow that could be several feet deep,
enough to cover them several times over,
and thriving with Arctic foxes,
is a dangerous place to live.
Ptarmigans have to adapt to give themselves
a chance at survival.
Below their cuddly snow
-ball-like appearance hides a crafty animal with a ferocious roar.
[burp-like squawking]
Yeah, maybe it's not as ferocious as we thought.
[incessant squawking]
These ptarmigans are making all kinds of noises.
[deep chittering]
[chuckles] Oh! There's one that sounds like Wario.
Hilarious calls aside, these litt
le guys prepare for winter in truly dramatic ways.
The most obvious is their change
of colouration. These ptarmiga
ns behind me are just about done transitioning from their summer plumage,
which is a rusty brown, to their stark white,
beautiful feathers.
And you can see some of them are still a little bit spotty.
Their feather co
louration, like the Arctic fox's fur, is an adaptation for camouflage.
In the summer, their colour helps them blend
in with the dirt and the vegetation
of their northern habitat.
While in the winter, they turn the colour of snow
to hide from predators.
Sometimes, temperature
s drop enough to trigger their transformation before the snow falls.
This makes them danger
ously conspicuous, but it also makes it easier for us to see their most
amazing biological feature,
the mammalification of their feet.
And yes, I just made that word up.
But you'll see what I mean.
In the win
ter, their feet grow a thick layer of feathers that act as a fur coat.
Their claws grow to increase the surface area
of their feet and give them, essentially,
furry winter boots.
[chirping]
[whimsical classical music]
Their claws will also be essential for digging burrows
to shelter during the harshest months of the year.
The willow ptarmigan's scientific name
is Lagopus lagopus, which means hair-footed, twice.
This is an
apt comparison, as many of their body parts have adapted to look the same.
Because th
is is a hare's foot,
and this is a willow ptarmigan foot.
Looks very similar.It's almost like everything out here is trying
to be a hare, or at least, a white, fuzzy orb.
Now,
they might be the hare-footed bird, but they also kind of look like hares.
From a distance, they share a very similar silhouette.
And they're not alone. Animals across Arctic climates tend to have
a very similar winter body.
A lot of the animals out here have evolv
ed along Allen's law, which is the idea that you reduce your surface
area to volume ratio in order to retain more heat.
These ptarmi
gan are no exception. They've got a shorter beak, shorter legs and even
a shorter tail to get closer to that perfect orb form.
This adaptation is seen mostly
in the willow ptarmigan's northernmost populations.
In more temperate places like the British
isles, they keep their summer outfits throughout the year.
Arctic and Subarctic populationsare the buxom beauties of the family.
Of course, keeping warm is j
ust a part of surviving in the Arctic.
Finding food is another major problem.
Luckily for these snowbi
rds, they have adaptedto survive on extremely calorie-deficient food.
Twigs make up
the majority of their diet until the thaw.
This is also
when chicks are born.
Ptarmigan chicks will eat insects and young greens,
but as they grow up, they become completely herbivorous.
Only the best for baby.
A steady source of protein keeps ch
icks happy and gives them a fighting chance in a ruthless environment.
By the following winter, they will come back here
and congregate in groups of up to 2,000 birds.
This protects from predators such as foxes
and birds of prey.
Here, safety is in numbers.
So, you're an animal who's adapted to the cold.
Congratulations! You might not freeze to death.
But even if you survive, life probably isn't much fun.
The snow
, the ice, the wind. Until spring comes, you've got no choice bu
t to soldier on.
Unless you adapt
to external sources of heat. These are relatively ra
re in the wild, but for animals that learn to utilize them,
like Japanese macaques have, they're life savers.
[Danielle] Across the Pacific,
in the snowy mountains of Japan,
one primate species has found a novel way to keep
warm during the coldest days of the year.
Japanese macaques are amon
g the most mythologized animals in their native Japan.
In my ma
ny years as a wildlife expert, I've been fascinated by how animals developed culture,
and this has to be one of my favourite examples.
These monkeys are found on three of the four main
Japanese islands: Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu.
They live in a variety of different habitats,
from evergreen and deciduous forests,
to sub-tropical lowlands,
to subalpine regions up to 1,500 metres high.
The monkeys are more comfortable in warm weather... But they've managed to adapt well to the freezing cold
and snowy winters of the Japanese Alps.
Temperatures here can
get to -15, which, for most primates, would lead to death in just a few minutes.
Most primate species don't survive
at anything under 5°C.
In fact, other than humans,
they're the only primates that are able to survive that far north,
and in temperatures this low.
Which is why they're also
known as the snow monkey.
[percussive music] Japanese macaques are medium-sized monkeys,
with the males slightly larger than the females.
Macaques that live in colder climates tend
to be heavier than the southern ones.
The added we
ight helps them deal with the cold.
The macaques that live in colder climates have to deal
with temperatures that go down
to -15°C.
Sure, they've got their extra-thick winter coats,
and they man
age to survive the nights by huddling together in trees.
But there's gotta be another way
to escape the freezing cold.
♪
How abou
t a dip in a hot spring?
The story goes that in the 1960s, a young snow monkey
living in the Nagano Mountains took an accidental bath
in a local hostel's hot spring heated by a nearby volcano.
♪
The other monkeys gradually started doing the same thing,
possibly inspired by watching the humans do it.
Soon, the humans got a little annoyed
that the macaques were interrupting their spa day.
After all, sharing ba
thwater with monkeys isn't the most hygienic practice.
So, the locals very
kindly built the macaques their own private hot springs.
Decades later,
macaque troops bathe in their personal pools
every single day.
[quirky music]
They warm up,
groom,
socialize,
bond, and relax.
This modern adaptation has also become
a major tourist attraction.
The monkeys
don't seem to mind the curious humans. They're more concerned about soaking
away the stresses of their day.
These hot springs ar
e a relatively new adaptation,but these mo
nkeys have been adapting to the coldfor thousands of years.
The most important of these adapta
tions are their long, lush, grey-brown coats, which grow extra-thick
in the winter for insulation.
Their faces are naked and a pinkish red, with long
beards, giving them a human-like appearance.
Their red rump
matches their face. And they'r
e more than just a shiny cushion. The size and colour of the rump are thought to show
important information of the monkey's reproductive
and social status, and of their health.
The females spend a lot of time raising the young monkeys
and grooming, which includes getting rid
of tangles and combing out parasites.
Babies learn to groom their mo
ms at a young age. It's an important social skill that will help them
fit in with the group and keep the troupe healthy.
Well-groomed
monkeys have fewer parasitesand are better insulated against the cold.
Snow monkey troops are always on the move.
They're semi-terrestrial and in large swaths
of their range, females spend most of the time in trees.
Up here in northern Japan, climbing is less
of a necessity and more of a fun way to get around.
And they're really, really good at jumping around.
Parkour!
They're omnivores, and their favourite foods
are smaller animals and plants, mainly fruits,
berries, seeds, flowers, and young leaves.
In the winter, with
the little plant food to be found, they focus their attention on insects, crabs, and eggs.
Their opposable thumbs help them skillfully rummage through thick winter snow to find food.
If a winter snowfall is particularly heavy,
the monkeys rely on eating bark and buds.
And if the pickings are really
slim, they'll try scavenging fungi.
Ma
caques are equipped with large cheek pouches that can store food while they forage.
Before they eat, the monkeys like to wash their food, which is something only a few species do,
like us, and raccoons.
Japanese macaques can
have a number of partners during mating season,
which lasts four or four months
between September and April.
Sometimes monkey
s fight over who gets to mate with who.The winner of the fight usually comes down
to which macaque can scream the loudest.
[high-pitched screaming]
But sometimes, a shouting match
doesn't deescalate conflict.
And when things
get physical, their weapons of choice are their huge fangs.
Wielded by the right monkey, they can be lethal weapons.
This most commonly happens during the mating season, when competition is high and tempers flare.
[screaming]
But after the fighting comes the loving,
and six months later,
in the spring or summer, a single baby is born.
The babies are very
dependent on their mothers, and will cling to her for the first two years
of their lives,
literally riding around on her back, hanging on to her
fur for dear life while she navigates
the treacherous, mountainous terrain that they call home.
♪
As they grow, the monkeys will learn to socialize
and to deal with freezing temperatures by mingling
in the hot springs and play-fighting in the snow.
They sound like a handful.
No wonder the mom has to unwind at the spa!
♪
Once they're weaned, the male monkeys will leave
their troops, and spend the rest of their lives
travelling between troupes and hoping to one day
become a dominant male.
♪
Animals that live in the coldest corners of the Earth
are at the mercy of a harsh, hostile environment.
Many try to wa
it it out and hibernate.Others migrate to look for greener pastures.
But then there's the wolverine,
pure lust for life in animal form.
These fearless and ferocious
furballs grab winter by the snowballs.
They have adapted
to a life of high risk and high rewards, calorically speaking.
They run around searching for
prey or carrion at a time when most other animals are in dens,
waiting for warmer days to return.
The wolverine doesn't have time for that.
It's an adaptation that
keeps them alive in the dead of winter.
There's a good reason
they've been nicknamed the Devil Beast!
♪
[Danielle] Back in North Amer
ica, we go to the Yukon to search for the north's most tireless hunter.
A predator whose strange and counter
intuitive "all gas, no brakes" approach to life in the cold has turned
it into a surprisingly successful species.
Their feeding strategy
wouldn't work for most animals,
but this hellion has evolved tools to find prey,
hunt, and also locate carrion.
Today, I'm in Kluane National Park,
surrounded by beautiful snowy mountains and icy lakes.
Right now, I'm following some footprints
and I can only assume that those belong to a wolverine.
The footprints o
f a wolverine don't look anythinglike a coyote or a wolf.
They look a little
bit more like a bear print,@obviously a little bit smaller.
Yeah, you can see how
there's two-- two trails here. Now, I bet you anything that if this was a coyote
and a wolverine, the wolverine was probably
the one chasing the coyote.
I'd put my money on that.
At first glance,
you might mistake the wolverine for a small bear.
But really, they're more closely related to weasels.
They belong to the Mustelidae family,
alongside fellow cutthroat cuties like badgers,
otters, pine martens and ermines.
Much like ever
yone's favorite X-man, wolverines are native to Canada,
but they can also be found across boreal forests
and tundras of the US and Eurasia.
Which means they n
eed to survive freezing cold, high latitude temperatures.
And after millions of years of evolution, they're not just surviving, they're thriving!
Just look at those coats.
Their thick, oily fur is hydrophobic,
meaning it repels water.
That's right, the Wolverine is waterproof!
Talk about a real superpower!
Without this ability, the snow or the blood
of their prey would wet their skin
and accelerate heat loss.
In the Arctic, moisture can be deadly.
Their paws are large
and furry and act as snow shoes to prevent them from sinking too far into the snow.
These murder-mittens are equipped
with semi-retractable claws
that they use for climbing, digging,
scaring away predators and the occasional villain.
Wolverines can hit speeds of almost 50 kms
per hour running across the snow.
If they ran that fast on a city road,
they'd likely get a ticket.
They're also great climbers,
and super strong for their size.
At over a metre long and
about as heavy as a German shepherd, the females are about 30% smaller
than the males, but equally as chaotic!
These stocky mustelids weigh between 11 and 18 kgs.
Their fur is brown or black with a yellow
or gold stripe from their head to their tail.
The ma
rkings on their faces, necks, and chests are unique to each wolverine.
Kinda like hyper aggressive snowflakes.
And they are aggressive.
Like, really, really, capital 'A' Aggressive.
Wolverines are always on the prowl, only taking breaks for naps and mating.
The only thing these demon-ferrets li
ke more than eating its prey is killing it.
The wolverine's ferocity is so legendary that people living out on the land told me
that they'd rather run into a polar bear than a wolverine.
The wolverine actually
has an average bite force compared to its body size, but its teeth are razor sharp.
Like other mustelids,
their last upper molar is turned 90 degrees inwards, which gives their bites
even more power for holding onto prey, crunching bones
and tearing frozen flesh off of carcasses.
Combine the wolverine's bite, thick hide, and sharp claws with a large dash of brazen confidence,
and you've got one deadly predator.
The wolverine is so tenacious that it can take
down animals up to five times their own size.
The wolverine kills its prey
with a bite to the neck, which severs its tendons and crushes its throat.
Their scientific name is Gulo gulo, which is Latin
for glutton, and they live up to that.
They'll eat anything that they can get their paws on.
From berries and plants, to mice and rabbits,
to elk and moose, even carrion is on the menu.
Ah, de
licious carrion. All the yummy meat withoutthe pesky time and energy spent hunting.
Clever wolverines have been
known to drive away much larger animals such as wolves and cougars
and take over eating the carcass of their prey!
Sorry, but the wolverine isn't here to make friends.
Wolverines will defend their meals by any means
necessary, and whatever they can't finish in one sitting
is claimed by spraying it with a strong, stinky musk
and burying it for later. Yum!
They find food using their incredible sense of smell.
Wolverines have the ability to sniff out car
casses buried under 20 feet of snow.
With so much of their prey being killed in avalanches
every year, the wolverine's heightened sense
of smell is key to their survival.
While many speci
es in their range get through the winter by hibernating,
wolverines just don't care about the cold.
While
everyone else is sleeping, the wolverine gets to hunting.
This is the other benef
it of being able to smell through the snow-- they can easily find animals
hibernating under the snow, and make sure they never
wake up again.
Don't work hard, work smart.
It really doesn't matter if you're de
ad or alive-- everything looks like a gourmet meal to a wolverine.
But even
the kings and queens of chaos aren't impervious to predators.
They have to watch out for wolves.
Wolverines can tak
e on one, two, even three wolves,but if they're ganged up on by a pack,
they can get themselves killed.
On the plus side, wolves kill other animals,
thereby creating yummy carrion for the wolverine.
They have a complicated
relationship, to say the least.
Wolverines are super solitary and extremely
territorial. They're always on a solo quest for food,
and only ever stop munching to mate and raise kids.
Researchers aren't sur
e how many wolverines there are in the world.
They're so elusive and mysterious!
But their numbers took a big hit
back when humans used to hunt them for their fur.
They're also threatened by global warming. Wolverines need deep mountain snows to den,
and scientists believe their habitats
will shrink as temperatures rise.
Their intense, never-stop lifestyle
is high risk, high reward.
Other animals survive the cold by doing the exact opposite:
expending as little energy as humanly--
or, ungulately possible.
Like the Siberian musk deer, a reserved little animal
with an irresistible scent desired all over the world.
[Danielle] We now head to Siberia,
one of the most frigid areas
in the world, to meet an animal who has evolved
to survive the winter by eating
what most would consider inedible.
The Siberian musk deer is one
@of several species of musk deer
in the Moschidae family.
They can
be found in the mountains and grasslands of Northeast Asia,
but they're most commonly found in the snowy mountain
forests of Siberia. Hence their name.
Their fangs are more like daggers,
which they use to protect their territories.
In this land
of frigid scarcity, controlling a productive plot of land
is the difference between life and death
in Siberia's dead cold of winter.
Despite being called deer,
they actually have more in common with animals
in the Bovidae family than the "true deer"
in the family Cervidae.
They are in their own family,
and are more closely related to antelopes, cows, sheep, and goats
than they are to reindeer, elk, red deer, and mooses.
Moose? Meese? Moose.
For one thing, male Siberian musk deer don't have antlers like their cervid friends.
Instead, they have a pair of tusks, which look like fangs.
They can reach about 10 cm long
and they never stop growing their whole lives.
Older males tend to have the largest tusks.
Cervids ha
ve preorbital glands near their eyes,which they use to mark their scent,
communicate with other animals,
and spray pheromones.
But the musk deer's scent glands aren't on their faces.
They're all the way round back.
Yep! Rig
ht there! In a little golf ball-sized sack right in front of their genitals.
This musk gland is what makes them musk deer.
The males spray their musk to mark their territory
and attract females for mating.
And their odour is so, so strong.
Musk dee
r are ruminants, meaning they consumerelatively calorie-poor food that gets fermented
in their digestive tract
to extract all the available nutrients.
Despite their scary-looking fangs,
Siberian musk deer are herbivores.
But in the frozen hills of
Siberia, which can get to -70°C,
colder than the average temperature of Mars,
their isn't much to eat in the winter.
Their menu is limited to pine needles, leaves, bark, maple,
honeysuckle, shoots, but mostly lichen.
They forage for it at night,
sometimes travelling kilometres
at a time on well-worn tracks
they create and use over and over again.
In the cold winters, when food is scarce,the Siberian musk deer is able to survive
on lichens that grow on evergreen trees.
They make up to 99% of their winter diet.
Wow, they lichen it a lot.
The great thing about lich
en is that it can extract nutrients from tree bark and even rocks.
And Siberian musk deer will nee
d all the nutrients they can get to survive the frigid winter months.
Musk deer find l
ichen by climbing bent tree trunks that can take them up to four metres into the air.
But don't worry, they're not afraid of he
ights. They can be found on steep mountainous slopes,
just like their goat cousins.
Siberian musk deer are sh
y and cautious animals, who are mostly active from dusk 'til dawn.
They're typically found by themselves or in small
groups of two or three.
And usually those groups
are a momma musk deer with her babies.
The deer's small body helps it run fast and hide
from predators in tiny openings
in their rocky terrain.
Lynx, wolverines, and the yellow-throated marten
are greatest predators of this little ungulate.
And when they notice danger,
they raise their tails to helpfully alert the other members
of the musk deer community.
Musk deer are migr
atory animals.
In the winter, they live on steep slopes covered with coniferous trees.
While they can move easily on top of snow
because of their light weight, navigating deep,
loose snow can be difficult and dangerous.
When this kind of snow blocks their familiar paths
for food, they must create new accessible winter paths.
This is an adaptation to find food in hard-to-reach places,
but also to escape predators,
for whom musk deer might be the only available prey.
Death is always afoot
in this unforgiving land.
[Danielle] There are many ways to die in the North.
Hunger, hypothermia and disease
are ever-present dangers.
But above them all,
the greatest danger is predation.
Siberia is home to giant predators,like tigers and wolves.
Though their main prey are not musk deer,
they must be avoided at all costs.
And so, the musk dee
r has learnt to live in the shadows.
During the spring and fall,
@Siberian musk deer use communal
toilets, which obviously
produces very strong odours.
The deer use the scent of their feces
to communicate with one another.
They're not very vocal;
their call is just a soft hissing sound.
Remember, very shy, very smelly!
Not much is kn
own about how Siberian musk deer mate. Mating season is Novem
ber and December. That's when young male deers deve
lop their tusks, which threaten rival males and impress
members of the opposite sex.
An
d don't forget about their musk glands, that secrete powerful, mate-attracting pheromones.
After mating, it takes abou
t six months of gestation before one or two fawns are born in late spring.
Females give birth in special ar
eas: under dense shrubs, low branches of fir, or around fallen trees.
The babies live with their
mothers until they're two, although they reach sexual maturity
around 15 to 18 months old.
Siberian musk deer
live about ten to 20 years. Becaus
e of illegal poaching and deforestation, musk deer populations are declining.
The species is considered vulnerable,
and heading towards becoming endangered.
Hopefully, as we continue to work
towards preserving their ecosystems,
we'll give them a chance not only to survive,
but also to thrive.
This winter soldier won't go down without a fight!
These animals have managed to adapt and make
the most out of their unforgiving environments.
But evolution takes a while, and their adaptations occurred over incredibly long periods of time.
Unfortun
ately, climate change has a disproportionate impact on polar regions.
And Arctic and Subar
ctic environments are changing at an unprecedented rate,
too fast for these animals to keep up.
Wolverines need deep snow to den,
and as temperatures rise, that's no longer a guarantee.
As the Arctic gets warmer,
the red fox ventures further and further north.
For the Arctic fox, this means more competition
for food, and the threat of being displaced.
Ptarmigans and Sib
erian musk deers' habitats are also shrinking, and they're adapting
by following the cold and migrating
to higher elevations and latitudes.
But it's not too late to take action. If we make the effort
to manage our impact on our only planet, we can give them hope.
And they deserve it, with ho
w hard they work to survive in the coldest corners of the world.
Keep warm, my little friends!