Tundra+facts

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 * A really cool fact about the Tundra is that is was once used as a prison camp by Stalin in the early 1900's. Stalin used the Tundra of Northern Siberia and Russia as his prison. He believed that it was an awesome idea because that way the prisoners couldn't escape. This was not the first time that the idea to isolate prisoners where they would die from the elements if they tried to escape had come around. A previous idea, that was similar, was to put prisoners in New South Wales (Australia). They placed them there because they could not escape due to the deadly wildlife and the fact that they were completely surrounded by water. Australia was a prison camp though, long before Stalin decided to put his prisoners in the Tundra of Northern Siberia and Russia.
 * The Tundra has 1700 species of vascular plants and only 48 species of land mammals.
 * Alaska, a part of the Tundra, has shown an increase of plant vegetation and greenery since the 1980's.
 * In the Tundra the ground stays frozen year round. This is called permafrost.The permafrost is about a finger length under the ground in the summer, causing the plants roots not to be able to go into the ground as far as they should. 75% of the ground is permafrost.
 * The Tundra can get very cold, down to -40* and below.
 * In the Tundra, temperature and rain fall is so little, that the Tundra mainly consists of shrubs and small bushes.
 * In the summer, some of the permafrost starts to thaw a little, just to allow a little plant life and micro organisms to grow.
 * The tundra, in the winter, is full of snow and many animals such as the caribou (see below), musk ox, squirrels, lemmings, and a variety of birds. Bird consist of the arctic tern, penguin, snowy owl (see below), and harlequin duck. The predators of the tundra include wolves, arctic foxes (shown below), polar bears, and grizzly bears. Another predator in the Tundra is the snowy owl; for food it eats lemmings and small rodents.
 * Some prey are the arctic hare and the lemming which the snowy owl eats them. The scientific name is Lepus arcticus, for the artic fox, who shares the same taste for lunch as the snowy owl.

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