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Posted

The climate of the earth varies a great deal from place to place, yet animals can adapt and survive under almost all conditions.

 

Some creatures, like the snail, can survive temperatures of 50 degrees below zero, while certain one-celled animals can live in water with a temperature of over 120 degrees.

 

Man can live in the frozen wastes of Siberia, where the temperature may reach 75 degrees below zero, or in the broiling desert where temperatures climb to over 125 degrees.

 

Some fish live in the deepest parts of the ocean, where the pressure of the water is so great that no person could survive there even for a moment. Goats and llamas live high in the mountains where only mosses grow.

 

Camels and kangaroo rats live in the hottest deserts, along with cacti and insects, while penguins and seals live in the frozen polar regions. In fact, almost every square foot of soil on earth contains worms, insects, and one-celled animals, and every drop of water contains tiny plants and animals.

 

We can say that, except for the coldest regions of the North and South Poles, and a few completely barren parts of the deserts and mountains, animals live everywhere on earth.

Posted

Animals and bacteria are two completely different things as are surviving and living. The snail might survive freezing temps, creatures like water bears can survive total dessication and vacuum but they cannot live that way. Complex creatures are limited in their ability to live quite a bit more than simple creatures like bacteria.

 

Taken from Rare Earth by Ward and Brownlee

 

Multicelluar plants 45c to 50c

 

Animals 50c

 

Eukaryotic microbes 60c

 

Cyanobacteria 70c to 73c (microbes)

 

methanogens >100c (microbes)

 

Extreme thermophiles > 100c (microbes) (some sources put this at >200c)

Posted
Not many things live in active volcanoes.
Not directly in magma, if that is what you think. Though numerous extremophiles have been found e.g. near volcanic vents.
  • 5 weeks later...
Posted

Life can exist in extreme conditions, and the extremophiles are an excellent example of that. But extremophiles are mainly bacteria, and bacteria are not animals.

 

And sigle-celled organisms are not animals, too. One common characteristic  to all animals is that they are multicellular.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted

If you're looking for the most extreme environment-tolerating creature that's still a member of the Kingdom Animalia, the lowly water bear may be where to look. These things would survive a planetary catastrophe that would, so to speak, take even the cockroaches with us.

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