RP273 Cold Beauty

 RP273 Cold Beauty

The taiga is the largest land biome, or type of habitat, in the world. The taiga (or boreal forest) is an area of coniferous forests that spans Eurasia and northern North America from coast to coast. It covers most of the area between 50 degrees latitude north to the Arctic circle. It's a harsh but beautiful landscape.

The taiga has an extreme climate, with large differences between winter and summer temperatures. It's mainly defined by its winters, which are long, snowy, and amazingly cold. Cold arctic air brings temperatures down to 54 degrees Celsius! The taiga is below freezing for more than half the year. It's not a very hospitable place for many animals or plants, though some hardy species can live there. Some of the animals that are capable of surviving in the taiga are types of bears, wolves, rabbits, weasels, and foxes. In the hot, humid summertime, the taiga fills with insects.

The huge forests of the taiga are full of the soft rustle of needles. The forests are made almost entirely of coniferous trees, which don't lose their leaves. They don't even grow leaves. In fact, coniferous trees have thin green or gray needles. The needles help them conserve water and their cone shapes help them shed heavy winter snowfalls.

The spruce, fir, and pine trees that cover the taiga create two major types of environment: closed canopy forest, and sparse taiga. In closed canopy forests, the trees grow very close together and the ground is covered with moss. In open spaces, bright wildflowers burst out in the summer. In the sparse taiga (also called lichen woodland) trees are smaller and grow much farther apart. The cold wind creates bare patches on the wind-facing surfaces of rocks, with moss and lichen (a strange combination of plant and fungus) growing only on the sheltered sides. For all its beauty, the life that exists in the taiga must primarily be admired for its toughness.