Wildlife in Alaska Puts the Continental US to Shame

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Wildlife in Alaska Puts the Continental US to Shame

By Trista - August 5, 2020

The Evolution Of The Wood Bison in Alaska

Their heads and shoulders are relatively large, especially when you compare them to the rest of their bodies. It gives them quite an intimidating appearance. They also have a hump that rises from the neck and slopes down to their hips. The wood bison have evolved to use their head to sweep through the snows so that they can still have access to grasses in the wintertime. It’s also interesting that their hair is quite like that of a human and is soft and durable. Researchers have found that wood bison is more primitive in the phenotype than the common plains bison. However, it’s unknown if they preserve the original phenotypes from the 1920s.

Comparing the evolution of both wood and plains bison, even if wood bison is heavier and bigger, the plains bison can run faster and reach up to 40 miles per hour. Sadly, wood bison are a threatened species, mostly because of hunting, and in the early 1900s almost went extinct. Today they are still fighting to preserve the species with many programs that so far have been successful. They are about seven thousand wood bison in the wild, and there’s a team of Russian and Korean scientist working on a potential de-extinction of steppe bison and wood bison using cloning techniques.

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Shedding Those Winter Coats

When the cold of the winter is over, the wood bison is ready for a makeover! They will lose their winter coat when Alaska temperatures start to warm up in the early weeks of spring. When it is mid-summer, the wood bison will have a completely new coat that is better suited to the warmer weather. In fact, this bison has two coats in one, with one layer that is closer to their skin is used to trap hot air and keep it warm, while the thicker outer coat can shed water, and it works as a wind protector.

Some people describe the wood bison coat as strong but soft. It is very close to human hair, so it’s not like the moose, caribou, and sheep coats’ hollow-like feeling. When they’re shedding their outer coat, they look incredibly shaggy since they lose it very slow and it takes them a few weeks for their summer coat to show off and the old one to get rid of. It’s interesting that you can see both layers of fur. The outer layer is mostly on their face and hump, while the inner layer covers the rest of the body.

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The Largest Owl Ever

The Great Grey Owl is considered the largest owl species by length as well as its signature rounded head, fluffy feathers, and brilliant yellow eyes with dark circles around them make it one fantastic bird to see in the wild. They don’t have any ear tufts because they don’t need them; it has so much plumage covering its whole body that they can survive the winter very warmly. Below its beak, they have a white-collar that sometimes resembles a bow tie of plumage that makes it one sassy owl ready for any party. However, even their beautiful color won’t distract you by how massive this owl is.

If you take all the feathers out of this owl, they are not that impressive and relatively small, but if you measure it as it is, that’s another story. The length is around 24 to 33 inches long for a female and 26 inches for a male. However, they have a wingspan of 5 feet long for an adult male and 4 feet 8 inches for an adult female. Thus, like the rest of the owl species, the female is bigger than the male. They only weigh from 1.28 to 4.19 pounds, which is no surprise since their bodies are a bag of feathers.

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The Unique Snowy Owl

We know that since you watched that movie about the kid wizard, you wanted a majestic snowy owl. The snowy owl, also known as the polar or arctic owl, are natives of the Arctic regions, and they are mostly on the tundra. It’s one of the largest owls, and it’s also the only owl with completely white plumage. Although the female tends to have some dark brown flecks, the males are as white as snow which is perfect for hunting. Speaking of hunting, like other species of owls, they tend to sleep all day and hunt during the night.

They will hunt small mammals and water birds, but their favorites to track are lemmings when they are in the breeding season. Their nest is set on a slight rise on the tundra’s ground because of their ability to camouflage in the snow. The development of the younglings takes a long time. If you want to see one of these in the wild, they like to wander almost anywhere close to the Arctic, but they are a bit unpredictable, and since they are on the vulnerable list of endangered species, it can be hard to find one. Nevertheless, if you do, count yourself lucky, especially if it has an acceptance letter with your name on its beak.

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A Very Agile Kitty

The beautiful Canada Lynx is a specialist predator found in the northern areas of Alaska and Canada, hence its name. Its long, dense fur, snowshoe-like paws, and triangular-shaped ears with black tufts make this cat a favorite to see in Alaska. They are excellent swimmers and very agile climbers, which makes them a fantastic hunter. Their favorite food is almost exclusively snowshoe hares, but when it’s harder to find them because their numbers are low, they like to hunt for ducks, ptarmigan, grouse, moles, and red squirrels, basically small mammals and easy to catch birds.

The Canada Lynx tends to hunt better at twilight or night when the hares tend to be more active and easier to catch. Their favorite way to track is to wait on specific trails or in ambush beds and then pounce on it and kill it quickly with a bite on its head or neck. They are loners and tend to hunt alone, and interesting enough, they tend to avoid each other if they are of the same sex. They only tend to meet other lynx during the mating season, which is a month-long in the spring.

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The Bearded Seal in Alaska

Contrary to their name, the Bearded Seal doesn’t have a beard. Their name comes from two Greek words, “eri” and “gnathos,” which refers to their strong jaw. It does have very long whiskers that curl up when they are dry, giving it a very posh look that can compete with the walrus’ mustache. They are also the largest northern phocid family and are the only genus Erignathus members, making them very unique for the seal species. These beautiful creatures can weigh almost 1,000 pounds, so there’s no wonder they are a favorite of some predators.

Because of their high-fat content, bearded seals are a significant food source for polar bears. They are also a favorite for local natives like the Inuit, which not only are a substantial part of their diet but also use the blubber for burning it in their stone lamps called “kudlik.” Since their skins are very tough, they are also perfect for making shoes, whips, dog sled harnesses, and even to make summer tents. Overall, these precious seals are an essential part of the Alaskan wildlife and the people who live there.

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The Fluffiness of the Arctic Fox

This small fox is a native of the Arctic tundra biome, which has the most brutal cold temperatures of the area, and this cute white fox is very well adapted to this cold environment. The impressive thing about these foxes is their thick fur that keeps them warm during the winter, and it protects them from predators by camouflaging in the snow, making them invisible. On the coldest nights, to keep themselves warm, they curled up tightly, hiding their legs behind their very fluffy long tail. When they curled up like that, it gives them a smaller surface area to volume ratio and keeps them insulated.

Arctic foxes do not need to hibernate like other animals because of their fur’s thickness, but they preserve fat by being less active in the coldest winter. They start to build up the fat around the fall to the point of increasing their body weight up to 50%, giving them enough energy to survive the winter when food is harder to find. Their diet consists of hunting small animals like lemmings, ringed seal pups, voles, fish, seabirds, and waterfowls. They also love carrion, berries, some insects, and seaweed to have a more balanced diet.

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The Handy Sea Otter

I’m sure you have heard the stories of these beautiful creatures holding hands while they sleep so that they don’t float away from each other. These cute creatures are the heaviest members of the weasel family, but they are also one of the smallest marine mammals you’ll find. Sea otters also have the thickest and most dense coat of fur you will find in the Animal Kingdom, and it keeps them insulated from the cold temperatures of Alaska. Even if they can walk on land, their favorite way of transportation and their favorite habitat is the ocean, where they spend most of their lives.

Their favorite food to catch is sea urchins, crustaceans, mollusks, and fish. There are not too many mammals species that use tools to their advantage, these handy sea otters like using rocks to open shells and dislodge prey, making it easier to get their food. Because of their love of sea urchins, they are considered a keystone species to control the sea urchin population. Without them, this can inflict extensive damage to the kelp forest ecosystems. They are a threatened species, so they are banned from hunting to save this fascinating species from extinction, and so far, the sea otter conservation efforts are working with their numbers growing in the wild.

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The Big Bad Wolf?

They’ve been the villains in a few fairy tale stories, but the Grey Wolf is not the big baddie that some people think they are. This wolf is the largest extant member of Canidae, with males weighing approximately 88 pounds and females around 82 pounds. The grey wolf is considered the most specialized for cooperative game hunting because of its capacity to take prey bigger than them in packs, be social, and have expressive behavior. They also are incredibly territorial and will fight anything that invades their habitat. However, the interesting thing is that they don’t need to be in packs to be a strong force in Alaska.

They can easily take down their big prey alone or with a partner, and their success rate is even higher than when they are in packs. That might be a reason why some cubs separate from their family when they grow up, and sometimes they end up establishing their own smaller packs. Even with their hunting skills and having a bad rap in society, Wolf attacks on humans are extremely rare, and when there are attacks, it’s because of rabies. They feared humans because of their experiences with hunters, ranchers, and shepherds. So who’s the bad wolf now?

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The Unicorn of the Sea

Unicorns might not exist in real life, but the beautiful Narwhal does, and it’s a beauty to behold. They live in cold Arctic waters, and they are one of two living species of whale in the family Monodontidae with the beluga whale. People are mesmerized by their horns, making them look like a fantasy creature from a medieval book. However, that large tusk is just a protruding canine tooth that projects from the upper jaw’s left side and forms that helix spiral. What’s even more interesting is that its horn keeps growing throughout its life.

Their tusk can reach to be about 4.9 to 10 feet long! It’s completely hollow, but it’s still cumbersome, and it can weigh up to 22 pounds. What’s even more fascinating and rarer is that one in every 500 male narwhals has two tusks when the fight canine also grows through the lip. It is also sporadic to see a female with a tusk too, and only about 15% has it, and it’s smaller than the male one and with a less noticeable spiral. Since they don’t reside in just one place, it’s a bit rare to see them, but you might get lucky if you are in the far south of the Alaska Peninsula and the Commander Islands.

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A Finless Dolphin in Alaska

Speaking of interesting sea creatures, we want to talk about the Northern right whale dolphin. These include just one of a handful of dolphin species that do not have a fin on top and have a smooth curving back instead. Their skin is mostly black with some white markings. They have a shorter beak than the most common dolphins and have a straight mouth line. They are not much information on how they reproduce since they are harder to spot, but it is estimated that they reach sexual maturity for males to be around ten years and females around nine years.

Northern right whale dolphins tend to be in larger groups of between 100 to 200 individuals, but they have seen groups of 300. They are mostly in the Pacific Ocean, so the best place to catch them in action is around the Monterey Bay all year long, around the Monterey Submarine Canyon. If you want to get a glimpse of them, the best time of the year to see them is around the summer and fall, and you can catch a whale-watching excursion boat where you might get lucky enough to see them riding alongside the boat.

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A Bird with Hairy Feet

And finally, let’s talk about this common bird who is not an Apex predator, but like all the animals on this list, it is an integral part of Alaska’s Wildlife. The Willow Ptarmigan, a small bird that is the state bird of Alaska, can be found in many places like Siberia, Scandinavia, and Canada. Their plumage color depends on the season. In the summer, they are mostly brown, but their feathers turn entirely white when winter comes. Although, sometimes, they get some black feathers in their tails. They haven’t changed much since the Pleistocene era in the tundra, where it was also very common to come by.

The most exciting thing about the ptarmigan is their feet. They are covered in tiny white feathers, no matter the season. Nevertheless, they have a purpose, and they are not only for decoration. They serve as a type of snowshoe that helps them walk around the tundra without making much noise. Basically, they keep them protected from the environment. Sometimes they like to hide in burrows in the winter, where, thanks to their white feathers, they are great for camouflage from predators and humans. They are always in flocks, so that you might find them in big groups wandering in the tundra. However, don’t get too close because they are afraid of humans, and they can fly away fast. Do you want to see more majestic animals? Check out animals from Madagascar!

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