Arctic Animals: 20 Species That Live in the Far North

1. Polar bear

The polar bear is the largest land carnivore, with adult males usually weighing 350–700 kg (770–1,540 lb). It lives on the sea ice, where it hunts seals, especially ringed seals, by waiting at their breathing holes. Under its white-looking fur the skin is black, and a thick layer of fat keeps it warm. About 22,000–31,000 polar bears remain, and the species is listed as Vulnerable because it depends on shrinking sea ice.

2. Arctic fox

The Arctic fox is a small fox, typically about 3–3.5 kg (6.5–7.7 lb), with some of the warmest fur of any mammal. Most turn white in winter and brown or gray in summer, while a “blue” form stays dark gray all year. It eats lemmings, birds and eggs, and in winter it often follows polar bears onto the sea ice to scavenge their leftovers. One young female was tracked walking about 3,500 km (2,200 mi) from Svalbard to Canada in 76 days.

3. Arctic wolf

The Arctic wolf is a white subspecies of the gray wolf that lives in the High Arctic of Canada’s northernmost islands, such as Ellesmere Island, and in Greenland. It hunts musk oxen and Arctic hares across land that is dark for months in winter. Because these wolves rarely meet people, some have approached researchers with curiosity rather than fear.

4. Arctic hare

The Arctic hare is a large hare of northern Canada and Greenland that usually weighs 2.5–5.5 kg (6–12 lb). In the far north its coat stays white all year, while farther south it turns gray-brown in summer. It can run at up to about 60 km/h (37 mph) and sometimes bounds on its hind legs alone, rather like a kangaroo. Short ears and thick fur help it save heat.

5. Lemmings

Lemmings are small, round rodents that spend the winter active under the snow, where the temperature stays much milder than the air above. Their numbers rise and crash in cycles every few years, and many predators, from Arctic foxes to snowy owls, breed more in good lemming years. The story that lemmings deliberately leap off cliffs is a myth, spread largely by a 1958 Disney documentary in which the scene was staged.

6. Musk ox

The musk ox is a shaggy, horned grazer of the Arctic tundra in Canada and Greenland, and it has been reintroduced or introduced to Alaska, Norway and Siberia. Adults usually weigh 180–410 kg (400–900 lb). Under its long outer hair lies a fine underwool called qiviut that is prized as one of the warmest natural fibers. When wolves threaten, the adults form a ring, horns facing outward, with the calves in the middle.

7. Caribou and reindeer

Caribou and reindeer are the same species: “caribou” is the usual name in North America and “reindeer” in Europe and Asia. They are the only deer in which the females regularly grow antlers. Many herds migrate hundreds of kilometers each way between winter forests and summer calving grounds on the tundra, and they dig through snow with their broad hooves to reach lichens. Read more on our reindeer page. Wild reindeer are listed as Vulnerable.

8. Walrus

The walrus is a huge, whiskered seal relative of Arctic coasts and sea ice. Most males weigh 800–1,700 kg (1,800–3,700 lb), and both sexes have long tusks, which they use to haul themselves onto ice and to show dominance. Walruses feed on the seafloor, finding clams with their sensitive whiskers and sucking out the soft parts. They are listed as Vulnerable, and as summer sea ice disappears, huge numbers now crowd onto beaches instead.

9. Ringed, bearded and harp seals

The ringed seal is the most common and widespread Arctic seal and the main food of polar bears. Females dig snow caves on top of the sea ice to give birth, hiding the pups from predators and cold. The bearded seal, with its long, curling whiskers, feeds on the seafloor, while the harp seal migrates with the pack ice and gives birth to white-coated pups. In 2025 the IUCN moved the bearded and harp seals to Near Threatened, mainly because of sea-ice loss.

10. Narwhal

The narwhal is a toothed whale of the high Arctic famous for its spiral tusk, which is actually a long left canine tooth that grows through the upper lip of males and can reach 1.5–3 m (4.9–9.8 ft). Adults are 3–5.5 m (9.8–18 ft) long and weigh 800–1,600 kg (1,800–3,500 lb). Narwhals spend the winter under dense pack ice in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait and dive more than 1,500 m (4,900 ft) deep to catch fish and squid.

11. Beluga whale

The beluga is a white whale of Arctic and sub-Arctic seas, born gray and turning white as it matures. It has no dorsal fin, which helps it swim under ice, and its neck bones are not fused, so it can turn its head. Its rich variety of whistles, chirps and clicks earned it the nickname “sea canary.” Many belugas gather in shallow river mouths in summer.

12. Bowhead whale

The bowhead whale is the only baleen whale that lives in Arctic waters all year. Its massive, bow-shaped skull can break through sea ice to reach air, and it has the longest baleen plates of any whale. Bowheads may be the longest-lived mammals: age estimates from eye tissue suggest some live for more than 200 years.

13. Greenland shark

The Greenland shark is a large, sluggish shark of the cold, deep waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic. A 2016 study using radiocarbon dating of eye lenses estimated that the largest shark examined was around 400 years old, with a likely range of 272 to more than 500 years, making it the longest-lived vertebrate known. Females may not mature until around 150 years old. It is listed as Vulnerable.

14. Arctic char

The Arctic char is a colorful relative of trout and salmon, often called the world’s most northerly freshwater fish. It lives in cold lakes and rivers all around the Arctic, and some populations migrate to the sea each summer to feed before returning to fresh water. Spawning males turn bright red or orange on the belly.

15. Snowy owl

The snowy owl is a large white owl of the tundra; males are almost pure white, while females and young birds have dark bars. Unlike most owls, it often hunts by day, which is necessary in an Arctic summer with no darkness. Its breeding success depends heavily on lemmings, and in poor lemming years many pairs do not nest at all. It is listed as Vulnerable.

16. Arctic tern

The Arctic tern makes the longest known migration of any animal, flying from Arctic breeding grounds to the edge of Antarctica and back each year. Tracked birds from Greenland and Iceland averaged about 70,900 km (44,100 mi) per round trip, and one bird from England covered about 96,000 km (59,650 mi). Because it experiences two summers a year, it probably sees more daylight than any other animal. Arctic terns can live for more than 30 years.

17. Rock ptarmigan

The rock ptarmigan is a plump grouse that is white in winter and mottled gray-brown in summer, so it blends in with snow and tundra in every season. Its feet are covered with feathers that work like snowshoes, and it shelters from storms by burrowing into snow. It is the official bird of the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

18. Gyrfalcon

The gyrfalcon is the largest falcon in the world, up to 65 cm (26 in) long. It comes in white, gray and dark forms, and white birds are most common in Greenland. It hunts mainly ptarmigan and seabirds, catching them in fast, low chases over the tundra.

19. Ivory gull

The ivory gull is a pure white gull of the high Arctic, with black legs and a blue-gray bill tipped with yellow. It lives along the edge of the pack ice all year and often follows polar bears to scavenge seal carcasses. Its numbers have fallen steeply in parts of its range, including Arctic Canada, and it is listed as Near Threatened.

20. Arctic woolly bear moth

The Arctic woolly bear moth of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic spends most of its life as a hairy caterpillar. Because the summer growing season is so short, a caterpillar may take up to seven years to grow up, freezing solid each winter and surviving temperatures as low as −70 °C (−94 °F) before thawing out in spring.

How Arctic animals survive the cold

Arctic mammals and birds share a set of tricks. Thick fur, dense feathers and layers of fat or blubber hold in body heat, and white winter coats hide predators and prey against the snow. Many Arctic animals have shorter ears, legs and muzzles than their southern relatives, which reduces heat loss. In the legs of many birds and the paws of Arctic foxes, warm blood flowing out passes close to cold blood flowing back, so heat returns to the body instead of being lost through the feet. Other animals escape the winter entirely, like the Arctic tern, or shelter under insulating snow, like lemmings.

How a warming Arctic affects its animals

Since 1979, the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the planet as a whole, and summer sea ice now covers far less of the Arctic Ocean than when satellite records began. Ice-dependent animals such as polar bears, walruses and seals lose hunting, resting and breeding platforms. On land, shrubs are spreading across the tundra, and southern species such as the red fox are moving north into Arctic fox territory.

The opposite end of the planet has very different wildlife, with penguins instead of polar bears; see our list of Antarctic animals.