h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Joke - Why don't polar bears eat penguins Answer 1) because they can't get them out of the wrapper (Penguin bars are a chocolate bar in the UK) answer 2) because polar bears live in the artic and penguins in Antartica

However.......

What would happen if somehow (and I can think of a few ways) polar bears were introduced to antartica?

Would they eat penguins?

Would they simply too jet lagged to cope?

Anyone?

ChawkE

Polar bears survive well in the Arctic because they can migrate south if it gets too cold. They live on small animals such as seals, foxes etc. They may also eat fish, I'm not sure.

Antarctica is in general much colder than the Arctic. The polar bears would only be able to live at the edges of the continent. If it got too cold, there would be nowhere to go, as they could not swim across to other continents. They can swim, but I doubt they can swim hundreds of miles. I don't think there is any drinking water in Antarctica. Do polar bears need fresh water?

Why wouldn't eating snow work?

Because the penguins p**s on it? And they'd probably get inner frostbite.

But if you in a zoo put the polar bears down with the penguins, is there any reason why the bear wouldn't just have an eating frenzy. Unless it doesn't like the taste. They are still meat.

I think polar bears would eat anything they can get their paws on. The director of Dublin Zoo told a story in his book about a fox on the loose in the zoo. It was coming out every night and killing small animals. The workers of the zoo formed a posse and managed to unearth the fox, which fled until it reached the top of the polar bear pit. With the workers coming up fast on it, it lost its balance and fell into the polar bear pit, where the polar bear lay asleep. The fox was dead before it hit the ground, so finely tuned are the bear's reactions.

I was watching a TV program on this last night, and a similar thought stuck me. There are no major land based predators in Antartica, and thus the local birds (penguins) have lost their ability to fly. Introduce polar bears and you could have an unprecedented ecological disaster on your hands...

That's basic biology. Introduce a new species into a new enviroment and you are in big trouble.

Well, not trouble for me so much, the penguins could have a hard time of it!

Lots of fat polar bears, though...

I was watching Whispering Dave Attenborough on the Blue Planet last night, and they showed Polar Bears taking those big white whales whose name I've forgotten at the moment. They weigh about 1 tonne.

It was really sad watching the Polar bears on TV last night - DA said that if the mummy bear didn't find food in time the baby bear would die. The baby bear got weaker and weaker as it's mother searched for food and then suddenly we cut to something else.....must we assume that the baby bear died?

All penguins do not come from (or go to) Antarctica. Many breed/live on various Southern Pacific islands.

Incidently, there are no walruses in Antarctica either. I wonder why?

How did penguins get to Antartica in the first place? Migration aboard a floating block of ice? I thought the Southern Oceans were rough enough to capsize any boat not large enough or precisely engineered to withstand the waves and wind--let alone birds.

They walked there. Once upon a time, much of the Southern Pacific formed part of the super continest, Gondwanaland.

They walked there. Once upon a time, much of the Southern Pacific formed part of the super continent, Gondwanaland.

David "God" Attenborough said that Polar Bears were such good swimmers that they had been recorded to have swum 100 miles when needed. Coooo. Beluga whales.

PP

So penguins have evolved in isolation for millions of years? It stands to reason, then, that other life forms "walked" across Gondawanaland at the same time. Why did they not survive climate change? Why did penguins adapt?

Some survive, some don't... the more extreme the conditions, less survive.


Dancer

There are plenty of other life forms in Antarctica. Seals, sea elephants, sea lions, krill, sharks, other fish, albatrosses, other sea birds, Kiwis, Americans....

I've noticed a tendency in nature programmes recently to show Nature not being Red in Tooth and Claw.

The polar bear thing on the Blue Planet must have been a ticklish problem for the producers, since either the fluffy baby seal or the fluffy baby bear had to die. Obviously they just copped out and left you to make up your own mind which one it was.

Beluga whales. Thanks.

Rainbow, given that we got to see how the programme was made at the end, we saw that in reality the filmmakers only had a day or two's footage with the 2 polar bears. Therefore, I think the filmmakers were making assumptions about the those bears that might not have happened in reality. I think there was a bit of emotional manipulation going on.

However, it is likely many bears do die of starvation every year, but the food that the dead animals provide enables another animal to live.