FriendshipGarden

michael · super moderator Joined: 13 Oct 2007 Posts: 981

The Arctic ice supports, literally, the polar bear, a half-tonne behemoth of creamy-white fur and muscle and claws you would not argue with.

It is highly visible and hugely iconic.

But just as the tiger and the rhinoceros depend on creatures you cannot see without a microscope and would not willingly give house room to if you could, so does the polar bear stand, literally, on a patchwork lattice of invisible, miniscule life.

Life-forms such as polychaetes (or bristleworms), copepods and amphipods that live just under the ice, around its edge, or even inside the floes themselves.

Rich Life in Nature's Freezer
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