Some animals that live IN THE ARCTIC tundra are:
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- Pika: It is a type of hamster. It is 20 cm long. The pika eats plants and herbs so you can realize that it is a herbivore eating animal. Many animals feed on the pika. It survives by digging holes in the ground and storing grass, flowers, and herbs. This animal can also be found on grassland biomes, but it is mostly found in the tundras.
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- Snowy Owl: When the snow melts, many birds come to nest. The snowy owls raise their young and eat insects and plants. These birds nest on the rocky cliffs along the shore. Others nest on grasses or in the ground. The snowy owls stay in the Arctic all year around.
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- Ground squirrel: The ground squirrels are one of the animals that hibernate. In its hibernation, it lines up the burrows with leaves, lichens, and musk ox hair and then rolls up into a ball and sleeps for 7 months. The body temperature drops almost to freezing and its heart beat slows down. The ground squirrels must get lots of fruits, seeds, and plants to prepare for a long sleep.
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- Polar bear: Polar bears live in the tundra. They are big, furry, white bears. They grow up to 7-8 feet tall. They have a thick layer of oil and blubber under their skin. They spend most of their time in the water where they can hunt their food. The white fur helps hunt seals that are on the ice. In the summer, it is harder to catch the seals, so they try to eat as much as they can before to fatten up. They hunt large and small animals, fish, birds, berries, and leaves. The females dig up a hole in the ice so they can hibernate in the worst part of the winter. The cubs are born in the den. Polar bears can be found in the coastal tundra, living on shore lines, and living on ice floats.
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- Walrus: The walrus has many layers of blubber to protect itself from the freezing water. After they get in the water, they have to rest and lay on the ice doing lots of noises. Many times when they're in the shore or in the ice, they get together in a big bunch. The walrus has whiskers that indicate where is the krill fish and where is the shellfish. To find the krill fish, it has to swim in the water. To find the shellfish, they must swim to the bottom of the ocean and with the whiskers track down the shellfish. The walruses eat thousands of krill fish and shellfish a day.
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- Arctic fox: The arctic fox is hard to see in the snow because of its white fur. It has a thick white coat in winter and in the summer it has a brown grayish color. The Arctic fox eats mayoral lemmings. They also eat hares, birds' eggs, and chicks. If there is a lot of food, the female fox can have about 11 or more pups and if there is not a lot of food, she can have only 5 or 6 pups.
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- Ermine: The ermine lives where it can dig a den to raise their young and it is also uses it to store food. A den is built in a pile of rocks or on loose parts of the earth. The ermine depends on the lemmings for food, but they aren't afraid of the Arctic hare. The female ermine is smaller than the male. This animal is thin and flexible, so it can get into the prey's tunnel (lemmings tunnels or other preys). The ermine has a coat in winter as well as in summer. In the winter, the fur is white and in the summer the coat is brown. The ermine is fast, very brave, and it's always hungry. When the ermine kills the prey, it brings the prey to the den (home).