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The Weddell seal [2] (Leptonychotes weddellii) is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica.The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by British sealing captain James Weddell to the area of the Southern Ocean now known as the Weddell Sea. [3]
All lobodontine seals have circumpolar distributions surrounding Antarctica. They include both the world's most abundant seal (the crabeater seal) and the only predominantly mammal-eating seal (the leopard seal). While the Weddell seal prefers the shore-fast ice, the other species live primarily on and around the off-shore pack ice. Thus ...
The seals can live for as many as 30 years in the wild, while dealing with predators like orcas and larger leopard seals. They survive on fish, squid, and other smaller prey to survive.
The skull of the leopard seal. The leopard seal has a distinctively long and muscular body shape when compared to other seals. The overall length of adults is 2.4–3.5 m (7.9–11.5 ft) and their weight is in the range 200 to 600 kilograms (440 to 1,320 lb), making them the same length as the northern walrus but usually less than half the weight.
The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals protects species within the Antarctic and surrounding waters, but allows restricted hunting of crabeater seals, leopard seals and Weddell seals. Weddell seal hunting is forbidden between September and February if the animal is older than a year, to ensure healthy population growth. [172]
Although the crabeater seal is sympatric with the other Antarctic seal species (Weddell, Ross and leopard seals), the specialization on krill minimizes interspecific food competition. Among krill-feeding whales , only blue whales ( Balaenoptera musculus ) and minke whales ( B. acutorostrata ) extend their range as far south as the pack ice ...
The earless seals, phocids, or true seals are one of the three main groups of mammals within the seal lineage, Pinnipedia. All true seals are members of the family Phocidae (/ ˈ f oʊ s ɪ d iː /). They are sometimes called crawling seals to distinguish them from the fur seals and sea lions of the family Otariidae.
Fossil in Peru. The fossils of A. longirostris have been discovered in the Pisco Formation of Peru and the Bahía Inglesa Formation of Chile. [1] When it was first described in 1981, it was thought to have been closely related to the lobodontine seals which includes the modern-day leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx), the crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophaga), the Weddell seal (Leptonychotes ...