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Animals of Antarctica

Antarctica has no native land mammals. Nothing lives permanently on the ice: the continent's vertebrate life is marine, and it comes ashore only to breed. The mammals assessed with an Antarctic range are therefore seals and whales — animals whose distribution follows the Southern Ocean and the krill it produces rather than the landmass itself.

That makes this the shortest list on the site, and the one where a range map is least useful. A whale assessed as occurring in Antarctic waters may spend half the year at the equator; the polar end of its range is a feeding ground, not a home. The species listed below are the ones whose Red List assessments name Antarctic or sub-Antarctic waters among the places they are found.

Species mapped
9
Countries covered
1
Threatened species
1
Data updated
August 9, 2026

Conservation status of these species

Countries covered

The 1 countries whose name appears in at least one Red List range description in this dataset, with the number of species recorded in each. A wide-ranging animal is counted in every country it crosses.

The families found here

  • Balaenopteridae 4
  • Phocidae 2
  • Delphinidae 1
  • Otariidae 1
  • Ziphiidae 1

Species to know

9 of the 9 species recorded here, threatened ones first. Select any of them to open it on the globe.

Other continents

Counts recomputed from the mapped dataset; countries are derived from the range descriptions of each assessment. Species data from the IUCN Red List, last refreshed on .