Another thing that makes the Ross Sea special is that it still has its full range of top predators. In most ecosystems humans have a big influence on the top predators. Maybe we see them as a threat to ourselves or our livestock, but it often turns out the top-predators have to go as soon as we arrive… As there is very little human influence in the Ross Sea, at present and historically, these top predators never had much to fear from us and are still around in large numbers. Polar ecosystems usually have quite a simple food web with few different chains, but in this case the food web is unusually rich. All of these are marine predators of course, but some of them are also very visible, like the Emperor and Adelie Penguin and the Leopard Seal.