Taiga Animals

The World's Biggest Land Biome

The taiga biome stretches out to nearly fifty million acres, covering almost 17 percent of the land on Earth. The cold climate of taiga, low precipitation, and short growing season together make it one of the harshest biomes in the world. Conditions are so tough that it is difficult for animals to live there year-round. So they do one of two things: they migrate when things get harsh, or they hibernate and wait it out.

You've probably heard about the animals of savannas, rainforests, and deserts. But when it comes to animals of the taiga, most people go blank. That's largely because taiga is one of the least-known biomes on Earth, which makes the list of taiga animals all the more fascinating.

List of Taiga Animals

Below is the full list of animals found in the taiga biome. It includes mammals, birds, and insects, all adapted to life in the boreal forest.

Animal Adaptations in Taiga

Weather Adaptability

The residents of the taiga prepare for winter by building up layers of fat to stay warm in the freezing temperatures. You can see this clearly in the moose. In summer it eats plant shoots and water plants to put on a thinner layer of fat, which helps it stay cool despite the warm daytime temperatures. Then, as spring begins and winter approaches, it switches to conifer branches, berries, and twigs to build a thicker layer that protects it from the bitter wind.

Other animals, like chipmunks, hibernate through the winter and keep their body temperature just warm enough to stop their tissues from freezing. Then there are species like the snowshoe hare and lynx, which tackle the freezing taiga by growing more hair on the bottom of their feet. This keeps them warm and makes it much easier to walk on snow without sinking in. During winter, small animals like voles, mice, lemmings, and shrews live in tunnels under the snow. The snow on top of the tunnel keeps it surprisingly warm, giving them a safe, sheltered place to reproduce.

Migration

Birds like woodpeckers, cedar waxwings, robins, red-breasted nut-hatches, hermit thrushes, goshawks, ducks, waterfowl, golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets, and geese all migrate to warmer areas during winter. Migration is also seen in caribou and wolves, which share a predator-prey relationship, the wolves follow the herds as they move.

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Reproduction

Animals like the red squirrel and wolverine give birth to their young ones at the beginning of March. Other animals (including river otters, ermines, minks, and martens) prefer to have their young in early spring, taking advantage of the season's warmth.

Hunting, habitat loss, and rising environmental pollution are all taking a toll on taiga animals. The list of endangered species is steadily growing. Something clearly needs to change before more of these remarkable animals disappear.

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