Arctic Tundra
Enduring the long, freezing winters of the far north, on permafrost, snow and ice or in the cold seas beside them.
Arctic Fox
Feet kept just above the point where living tissue freezes, a coat color set by one gene, and satellite-tracked treks of up to 40 kilometers to hotspots on the sea ice.
Bowhead Whale
A bow-shaped skull that breaks through sea ice, DNA-repair genes that may help it resist cancer, and a lifespan estimated at over two centuries.
Gray Wolf
A keystone predator whose packs hunt down elk and moose, and whose howl can carry up to ten miles across Arctic tundra to pull the pack back together.
Great Horned Owl
Feathered horn tufts, tiger of the air, and nocturnal forest ambush conqueror.
Moose
Half-tonne boreal giant, antlers that are the fastest-growing tissue of any mammal, and stilt legs that sometimes give it an edge over wolves in deep snow.
Muskox
Bulls settle rivalries by charging 50 yards or more and colliding head-first on their horn bosses.
Narwhal
Deep-diving Arctic whale whose spiral tusk can grow up to 9.8 feet and may double as a sensory tool.
Norway Lemming
A warning-colored mountain rodent, kin of the lemmings wrongly said to leap to their deaths.
Orca (Killer Whale)
Matrilineal pod dialects, cooperative wave-washing tactics, and apex oceanic dominance.
Peregrine Falcon
The sky's guided missile, folding into a 320 km/h (200 mph) stoop with the same navigation math built into real missiles.
Polar Bear
Arctic apex predator with hollow, see-through fur over jet-black skin, a nose that smells seals 20 miles off, and a shrinking sea of ice to swim.
Red Fox
Fluffy white-tipped tail, a pounce that may be aimed using Earth's magnetic field, and an omnivore's habit of eating whatever is available.
Reindeer (Caribou)
Eyes that shine deep blue in the Arctic winter, feet that click when it walks, and the only deer where cows grow antlers too.
Snowy Owl
A powerful owl of the Arctic tundra that often hunts by day, colored for winter camouflage and able to take birds as big as geese.
Walrus
Tusks up to three feet long, hundreds of sensitive whiskers, and the bulk of the third-largest pinniped.
Wolverine
Scavenger of the far north whose jaw-joint bone was the stiffest and most crush-resistant of 40 carnivores tested in a 2018 study.
Wood Frog
A frog that can let ice fill over a third of its body each winter, stop its own heart, and thaw out alive again each spring.