Antarctic Foodchain Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bloom

Phytoplankton blooms can often result in an increase in plankton concentration of up to 300-400 times the normal levels. This provides highly concentrated food to help feed animals as small as krill or as big as baleen whales. The bloom normally begins in early Spring.

Answer: Crustaceans

Antarctic krill are a fairly large species (up to 6cm) that can live up to six years, if they escape being eaten. They live together in schools, known as swarms, reaching densities up to 30,000 krill per cubic meter.

Answer: Swim bladder

Icefishes are a very common order of Antarctic fish, contributing nearly 122 known species to the Antarctic ecosystem. Because of their antifreeze glycoprotein, they are able to survive in subzero Antarctic waters (-2 degrees Celsius in salt water). They also lack hemoglobin or any form of oxygen carrying protein, which means that their blood is colorless.

Answer: Colossal squid

The Colossal squid is thought to grow to about 12-14 meters. They can dive down to 2200 meters below the surface where it is thought that they feed on Chaetognatha or bioluminescent worms. Sperm whales are known to feed on these and other types of squid.

Answer: Arctic tern

The Arctic tern has its life planned so that it sees two summers each year - one in the Arctic and the other in the Antarctic. It breeds in the northern hemisphere where it spends half the year, before migrating to Antarctica to spend a second summer in the southern half of the world.

Some birds are estimated to cover around 56,000 miles each year flying from the top of the world to the bottom and back again.

Answer: Their father regurgitates a milky white substance produced by his glands

Emperor penguin eggs hatch while the mother is away feeding. The chicks are first protected by their fathers, who regurgitate a milky substance from one of their glands. When the mother returns with a full stomach, the penguin chicks will receive their first real meal of regurgitated fish.

The penguins are too young to fish for themselves, and they will rely on their parents for regurgitated food for the rest of the season.

Answer: They spit regurgitated food at the attacker

The Southern Giant Petrel is a very aggressive bird. It is so aggressive that it has been known to spit at animals that come too close. This overly aggressive behavior earned it the name stinker.

Answer: They hide in the water by the edges of the ice

Leopard seals will wait near the edge of the ice for the first penguin to jump in the water. When that happens, they will bite its legs and beat the penguin against the surface of the water until it dies. Jumping on land puts the leopard seal at a disadvantage as the penguin is more mobile on the ice. Few penguins venture too far out into open water, and thus it is a bad place for leopard seals to look for their prey.

Answer: Pods

Orcas hunt in pods and employ some clever hunting methods. One method is known as carousel feeding, and involves surrounding and herding the fish into a ball and slapping them with their tails to stun them long enough to swallow them all whole. They are also known to knock penguins and seals off of the ice and into the water where they are quickly devoured.

Answer: Humans

Increased UV rays due to the ozone hole over the Antarctic have confused the phytoplankton which rely on changes in the amount of light to know where to position themselves for photosynthesis, resulting in the depletion of plankton populations. Around 100,000,000 kilograms per year of krill are caught for use as bait or as fish food in aquariums. Illegal fishing remains a problem and despite fishing regulations, nearly 32,000,000 kg of Patagonian toothfish are removed from Antarctica each year. Squid fishing is a relatively new commercial exploit, but is becoming a problem for the many predators that rely on squid as a food source. The various penguin species are not generally threatened by humans directly, but the depletion of krill, fish, and squid has made it difficult for Emperor penguins to find enough food after weathering the long winter. When an emperor penguin with a young chick fails to catch fish, two penguins die, the parent and the orphaned chick who will not receive its meal. Seals, especially fur seals, have been commercially harvested since the 1820s for their skins and for oil driving them to the brink of extinction. Commercial whaling in the twentieth century has also lead to the endangerment of many Antarctic whales, once coveted for their oil but more recently hunted as a food source.

At the top of the food chain, few humans live on Antarctica, and only a handful will stay to bear the harsh Antarctic winters, but at this rate, we may become the only residents of the Antarctic.