Polar Nightplains and Shadowforests

Things are looking up for life at the poles. The South Pole is covered in grassland and forests home to placental mammals, marsupials, and numerous other unique lifeforms. The north is very similar, except it isn't a complete landmass and instead a lot of scattered islands along with Greenland. However, the environment depends on the season. In the polar summer, the poles look more like the great plains and Appalachian forests of North America. Once the polar winter comes, the entire ecosystem changes, many different lifeforms have waited for the darkness as the lifeforms of summer hide away until the light returns.

Shadowforests are a biome found exclusively in Antarctica, they are only present from June to September. Most trees in the Shadowforests are evergreen tree ferns descended from eagle ferns as well as gargantuan conifers, the only deciduous trees are found on the coast. Once winter hits, these trees block out all moonlight, auroras, and starlight from reaching the understory. Only a little bit of sunlight gets in through the canopy everyday. The understory of the shadowforest isn't suitable for most vascular plants, so everything is dominated by other lifeforms. Moss blankets the understory, fungi grow to the size of millet, and carnivorous and parasitic plants take advantage of the life flourishing under the trees. Shadowforests rarely get too cold as the forest traps heat in the understory, Antarctica during this time is naturally humid and warmer so the forests feel more like a temperate rainforest rather than feeling like Alaska.

Nightplains are found in both poles. The temperatures here are only just above freezing. When the nights get especially cold, the nightplains are the only places left on earth where snow still falls in the Calidocene. The rolling plains are home to tall grasses and grazing herbivores like armagrandes. Nightplain grasses are hardy and need little light to function. Nightplains get little sunlight per day, however they are kept well lit by the light from auroras.