Polar Bears Have Never Met a Penguin

Every December, a greeting card somewhere shows a polar bear sharing an ice floe with a penguin. In nature, those two have never met.

Polar bears live in the Arctic: around northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Norway and Russia. Penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species lives partly north of the equator, in the Galapagos, and it is nowhere near a polar bear.

Who lives where

• North only: polar bears, narwhals, walruses, Arctic foxes, reindeer.
• South only: penguins, leopard seals, Weddell seals, wandering albatrosses.
• Both: some whales, and travelers like the Arctic tern.

Why the split?

Part of the reason is the warm tropics between them, which act as a barrier for cold-adapted animals. Penguins evolved in the south and stayed there. Polar bears evolved from brown bears in the north and never had a way across.

Antarctica has no large land predators at all, which is one reason penguins are so unbothered when a person walks by.

It remains the most polite separation in nature, and we made a shirt to honor it.