Pictures from Antarctica and the Arctic

Penguins, seals, whales, albatrosses, icebergs, glaciers, ice shelves, sea ice, ice breakers, tour ships, polar bears, reindeer, mountains, solar halos, arctic wildflowers, scientific bases and many more. Images from both polar regions on a whole range of subjects.

Captioned Slide-Show - I suggest you start here if you are a first time visitor. These pictures are fully captioned and give an illustrated "slide show" with the text as commentary if you keep clicking the "next" button. They give a pretty comprehensive overview of Antarctica and its wildlife. None of the pictures in this section may be used elsewhere - many are the copyright of people not directly connected with this website who have granted permission to use them here.

Free use pictures of Antarctica, titled but uncaptioned, no charge for personal or limited commercial use, wider use may be purchased click here - around 1400 pictures available!


Open this Gigapan picture in a new window to explore it in detail
This image is taken from the top of Observation Hill overlooking McMurdo Sound Antarctica - Scott's Cross in the Foreground.
Zoom into the left and you'll see the New Zealand Scott Base, to the right the US McMurdo base, lots of details to zoom into en route

Open this Gigapan picture in a new window to explore it in detail
Scott Base, Antarctica a walk amongst the pressure ridges

Gigapan - a panoramic picture made up of multiple images from a digital camera stitched together.
These images used courtesy of GNS Science New Zealand