Subarctic and Arctic Mountains

Abstract

The principal high mountains of the subarctic and arctic regions, so far explored by entomologists, include the mountain systems of Fennoscandia, the Kolyma Mountains and the mountains of the Tai Myr Peninsula (75° NL) in North Siberia, the Anadyr Mountains a little to the south of 70° NL (between 170° and 180° EL) west of the Bering Strait (part of the Beringean Region was already discussed in chapter XIII), the mountains ranges of the Alaska-Yukon Territory, parts of British Columbia, Labrador; Mt. Peterman Peak (3353 m above mean sea-level, 73° NL and 30° WL) and Mt. Rigny (2399 m) south of 70° NL on the east coast of Greenland. Mention may also be made of the arctic mountains of the Queen Elizabeth Islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (north of 74° NL to nearly 83° 7′ NL), within 750 kilometres of the North Pole (164). Some of these mountains in the Archipelago attain elevations of 3000 min the east, in the northern Ellesmere Is. and Central Axel Heiberg Is. Some mountains in the Melville Is. are only 900 m above mean sea-level. The extreme northern mountains of northern Scotland, north of the 58th north parallel, are almost on the fringe of the subarctic mountain system. The northern parts of the Ural Mountains are in the subarctic and arctic regions. FREEMAN (381) has recently given a brief historical resumé of the entomological explorations in the subarctic and arctic regions of Canada, including Alaska. The same author has also recently discussed the general distributional peculiarities of the subarctic and arctic butterflies.