Extreme Adapters
The long and short of the Alaskan Sky
Juneau What?
Tree-mendous Facts
Edible or Regrettible
100
This jawless marine fish has 5 hearts! It eats dead (and not-quite-dead) fish from the inside out and slimes its way out of sticky situations.
What is the Pacific Hagfish
also known as the slime eel?
100
This natural arctic light show in the sky is caused by solar particles colliding with atmospheric gases. Be ready with the camera for a long exposure!
What is the aurora borealis?
100
A picture may be worth 1000 words, but in Alaska, but it could cost $10,000 and a year of jail time if you do this to get one.
What is wake up a sleeping bear?
(oh my)
100
This 2,500 mile coastal rainforest is the largest temperate rainforest on Earth — running from California's redwoods all the way up to Alaska's Tongass.
What is the Pacific Temperate Rainforest?
100
LINGONBERRY: Tiny, tart, and bright red 
What is edible?
A tundra staple eaten by bears, ptarmigan, and Alaska Natives for thousands of years. Also delicious as a jam and on pancakes.
200
This scrappy tundra rodent drops its body temperature as low as 27°F to keep from ice forming in its cells. It is the only mammal on Earth known to do this.
What is the Arctic Ground Squirrel?
200
This atmospheric optical illusion forms when flat, hexagonal ice crystals act as mirrors, reflecting light upward. Often created from city street lights and the moon.
What are Light Pillars?
200
Alaska averages over 20,000 of these per year
What are earthquakes?
200
Bears and eagles drag and deposit the remains from these nitrogen rich meals deep into the forest interior, fertilizing the soil and contributing to an ancient cycle that connects marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
What is salmon?
200
WATER HEMLOCK
Delicate white flowers, grows near streams.
What is regrettable!
One bite of the root causes fatal seizures within minutes. North America's most toxic plant.
300
This Alaska amphibian's blood freezes, heart stops and ceases to breath each winter. Come Spring, it thaws out and hops on.
What is the wood frog?
300
In Utqiaġvik, one of the oldest inhabited towns in the US and Alaska's northernmost city, the sun doesn't do this for approximately 66 consecutive days every winter.
What is rise?
300
Adopted in 1972, Alaska's official state sport is this traditional Alaska Native competition featuring events such as the ear pull, the kneel jump, and the four-man carry
What are the Alaska Native Games?
300
Some Sitka spruce trees in this rainforest are over 700 years old and over 200 feet tall. Their root systems are interconnected through fungal networks that scientists now call this underground communication system this www.
What is the wood wide web?
300
GOLDEN CHANTERELLE
Bright orange, grows near spruce trees, smells faintly of apricot.
What is edible!
One of Alaska's most prized edible mushrooms — if you picked the right one."
400
This microscopic creature found in Alaska's mosses has survived radiation, space, and temperatures from near absolute zero to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. 
What is a tardigrade?
400
Fairbanks' Alaskan Goldpanners have played this summer game at midnight since 1906 thanks to 22 hours of daylight from the midnight sun.
What is baseball?
400
In 1867, the US purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, which is approximately this per acre
What is 2 cents?
(Valued about 44 cents today)
400
The Tongass stores more of this per acre than any other forest on Earth — including tropical rainforests. When old growth is logged here, centuries of it are released back into the atmosphere.
What is carbon?
400
BANEBERRY
Shiny, red, and pretty
What is regrettable!
Six berries is enough to cause cardiac arrest.
500
This scrubby pioneer plant is first to colonize the harshest glacial and rock surfaces, pulling nitrogen from the air and enriching soil for future ecosystems.
What is Sitka alder?
500
During Alaska's long winter darkness, this large predator switches almost entirely to hunting by sound and it's sense of smell which is 100 times more powerful than a human's.
What is the brown bear?
(Also the wolverine)
500
Juneau sits at the edge of this second largest icefield in the western hemisphere after Greenland
What is the Juneau Icefield
500
Rainfall in parts of Southeast Alaska's rainforest exceeds 200 inches per year — yet the forest floor rarely floods. This is largely due to the sponge-like capacity of this layer, made of decomposing moss, bark, and organic matter that can hold many times its weight in wate
What is the duff layer?
500
WILD POTATO
What is both!
The roots have been eaten by natives for thousands of years but the seeds can cause paralysis. This may have contributed to Chris McCandless (Into the Wild) fate.
