Lake Baikal
"Stars over lake Baikal" by Black Sickle is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
About the Lake
Lake Baikal is the largest lake in the world measuring up to 637 m deep and 636 km long. It contains about the same amount of water as all the great lakes combined and it contains about 20% of the world's freshwater. While being the largest lake on earth it also contains the purest water on earth. The water is filtered by a special creature that lives in the lake. The lake is located in the heart of Siberia, Russia. It is called the great sacred lake by the natives. It is almost always frozen and the ice can get to be 2 meters thick. The ice breaks and freezes again making big ice spikes and structures on top of the lake's main ice layer. There can also be large ice cracks that people sometimes fall in. Most people who live near the lake don't think much life could prosper in such an extreme environment like the lake by the lake is actually teeming with life.
Native Species
Lake Baikal is a really old lake, which has given animals lots of time to adapt to Lake Baikal's unique environments. There are many predators that are native to the lake, These include Brown Bears, Wolves, Wolverines, Links, and Foxes. These predators have plenty of animals to hunt because of the large variety of deer-like creatures. There are a large variety of different species of deer-like creatures that include Roe deer, Sika Deer, Reindeer, and Moose. The Lake has many other more unusual animals that live in or beside the lake.
"Nerpa (Pusa sibirica)" by Sergey Gabdurakhmanov is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Nerpa
The Nerpa is a seal that is native to lake Baikal. These curious seals are one of the only freshwater seals on the planet. They may look a little like their relatives, the common harbor seal but they are quite a bit different. They have a falter snout, longer claws, bigger eyes, and hind flippers that look somewhat different compared to other seals. One of the most asked questions about the Nerpa is how did it get to Lake Baikal in the middle of Russia? This question is still a mystery, but the leading theory is that the ancestors of the Nerpa just swam up the rivers that connect to the arctic ocean and slowly adapted to brackish water and then to the freshwater of Lake Baikal.
Goupki
Goupki is the reason why Lake Baikal is so clean and pure. The Goupki is a type of sponge that is adapted to the freshwater of the lake, it kind of looks like water plants. The sponge filters the water and 2cm squared of the sponge can filter about 20 letters per day. While the sponge is filtering the water the sponge gets clogged from everything that it filters. To keep the sponge working different organisms like crustaceans feed on and clean the sponge. The Goupki is has been living in the waters of Lake Baikal for around 2 million years.
Sable
Slables are small ferret-like animals that live in mostly Russia, China, and Mongolia. These little creatures are brown and black and mostly live solitary. The Sables live on the coast of Lake Baikal in the forested areas. They eat small These animals' fur is very valuable. Many people poach these animals for money. Back in medieval times, one English king decided that only royalty or other Noble people.
Sources
“Biodiversity in One of the Biggest Lakes in the World | Slice.” YouTube, YouTube, 11 Mar. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7i8oZwm67M.
“Lake Baikal: A Biological Treasure Trove | Slice.” YouTube, YouTube, 2 Apr. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAcReQHYnuE.
“Lake Baikal: Earth's Deepest, Oldest Lake: Earth.” EarthSky, 3 June 2019, https://earthsky.org/earth/what-is-the-worlds-deepest-lake/.
“Sable.” AZ Animals, 10 Feb. 2021, https://a-z-animals.com/animals/sable/.
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