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How a Leopard Seal Fed Me Penguins". National Geographic. March 11, 2014. Archived from the original on February 28, 2021 . Retrieved April 23, 2023. Elephant seals are long distance swimmers, sometimes covering paths of 10,000 miles as they hunt for food in the ocean. This specimen is important because it shows that a seal swam even farther than is considered normal for its species. It is an extreme example of the wide variety of behavior scientists could expect to see in in any given elephant seal. Walker, T.R.; Boyd, I.L.; Mccafferty, D.J.; Huin, N.; Taylor, R.I.; Reid, K. (1998). "Seasonal occurrence and diet of leopard seals ( Hydrurga leptonyx) at Bird Island, South Georgia". Antarctic Science. 10 (1): 75–81. Bibcode: 1998AntSc..10...75W. doi: 10.1017/S0954102098000108. S2CID 85575118.
Sea level rise could also greatly endanger pinnipeds, especially those in warmer waters. Hawaiian monk seals, for example, rely heavily on the atolls of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, some of which only rise a few feet above current sea level and may become completely submerged if sea levels continue to rise. In the Mediterranean, monk seals inhabit coastal caves that may become increasingly flooded with rising sea levels. Captivity Taylor, Margot (2017-09-27). "Odds against St Kilda leopard seal pup". Otago Daily Times . Retrieved 2020-07-25. Around the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, the Antarctic fur seal ( Arctocephalus gazella) is the main prey. Antarctic krill, southern elephant seal pups and petrels such as the diving petrel and the cape petrel have also been taken as prey. [35] Vagrant leopard seals in New Zealand have been observed predating on chondrichthyans; elephantfish, ghost sharks, and spiny dogfish were recorded as prey items. Additionally, this population of leopard seals and those in Australia were noted to bear wounds from chimaeriforms and stingrays respectively. [36] There are 19 species and 16 subspecies of phocid seals in the northern and southern hemispheres. These include the monk seal, which lives in Aegean and Ionian Seas (Greece and Turkey), northwest Africa, the Canary Islands and northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and the Baikal seal – the only fresh water seal which lives in Russia’s Baikal lake. This type of seal lived off South Africa’s coast five million years ago.A second weighted analysis produced a grouping which included the Langebaanweg seals, Antarctic seals and extinct South American phocid seals – but these relationships are not well supported in the analysis. The Langebaanweg skulls that grouped together in the morphometrics may represent different species and not a growth series. I thought, I don’t see half of these animals, and they’re amazing. Who else doesn’t see these animals? Because we’ve got no natural history museum down here where you can take kids to – or for anybody, not just children. So, I got my licence to collect cetacean bones in 2019, and started from there." Phocid respiratory and circulatory systems are adapted to allow diving to considerable depths, and they can spend a long time underwater between breaths. Air is forced from the lungs during a dive and into the upper respiratory passages, where gases cannot easily be absorbed into the bloodstream. This helps protect the seal from the bends. The middle ear is also lined with blood sinuses that inflate during diving, helping to maintain a constant pressure. [15] Today, the Hawaiian monk seal and Mediterranean monk seal are two of the most endangered seal species in the world. Around the Hawaiian Islands there are about 1,400 Hawaiian monk seals, about one third of its historic population. Extensive conservation efforts have been put in place to save this species, but food limitation, entanglement, new shark predators, and habitat loss all contribute to their inability to rebound. There are fewer than 800 Mediterranean monk seals, which have been hunted since the Stone Age along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The greatest threat to the Mediterranean monk seal is human interaction. These seals rely on coastal caves in undisturbed areas, which are becoming increasingly rare in the continuously developing Mediterranean coastline. Mediterranean monk seals also become entangled in fishing gear, where they are unintentionally killed. Recent efforts to protect their caves and work with local fishermen show signs of helping this species to slowly recover. Climate Leopard Seals". NOAA Fisheries National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Alaska Fisheries Science Center. 27 January 2021.
After females mate the next few months are dedicated to fattening the pups. In some species, mom will spend several days at sea foraging for food and then returning to feed her pup with milk. In other species, mom lives off her fat reserves and stays with her pup continuously until it is weaned. After a few months, the two return to the ocean and the pup learns how to forage for itself. Today seals and sea lions delight visitors of zoos and aquariums with their endearing personalities. For the most part, seals and sea lions steal the show. But the first pinnipeds to be caught and taken from the Arctic for entertainment purposes were walruses. These initial attempts at captivity, however, were complete failures. In 1608, two young walruses were captured and taken aboard the “God-speed.” En route to London the female died, and the male died soon after arrival. The next walrus calf to arrive in London was in 1853, and a third arrived in 1867. They, too, died shortly after arrival, likely due to the diet they were fed by their captors. Accounts of baby walruses kept on ships describe how they were fed salt fish, salt beef, vegetable purees or, in one case, an oatmeal and pea soup—milk was not available. The death of one walrus prompted an autopsy, revealing that it had no fat. Scatterplots of the first two axes of principal component analysis based on variables of the landmarks of spotted seals and harbor seals aged 7 or older. Circles represent spotted seals and triangles represent harbor seals. Variables that were strongly reflected in each axis are represented by the illustrations of the cranium and landmarks. Filled circles and numbers represent the landmarks. The asterisk (*) in the illustrations of cranium indicates the centroid point Burns, J.J. (2002). Harbor seal and spotted seal Phoca vitulina and P. largha. In: W.F. Perrin, B. Wursig and J.G.M. Thewissen (eds), Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals Academic Press. pp. 552–560.
Both Southern and Northern elephant seals suffered from extreme hunting in the 1800s. Today, they face another obstacle: climate change. But by learning more about the species’ range of behavior in the past, scientists can better predict the many ways they could react to global challenges now.
Dewaele, Leonard; Lambert, Olivier; Louwye, Stephen (2017-02-21). "On Prophoca and Leptophoca (Pinnipedia, Phocidae) from the Miocene of the North Atlantic realm: redescription, phylogenetic affinities and paleobiogeographic implications". PeerJ. 5: e3024. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3024. PMC 5322758. PMID 28243538. Hiruki, Lisa M.; Schwartz, Michael K.; Boveng, Peter L. (1999). "Hunting and social behaviour of leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) at Seal Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica". Journal of Zoology. 249 (1): 97–109. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7998.1999.tb01063.x. Allen, Sarah G. (1985). "Mating Behavior in the Harbor Seal". Marine Mammal Science. 1: 84–87. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-7692.1985.tb00532.x. Though able to move on both land and sea, pinnipeds are the most efficient underwater. Some species spend the majority of their life in the ocean—female northern elephant seals spend 66 percent of their time in the open ocean. Borsa, Philippe (1990). "Seasonal occurrence of the leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx, in the Kerguelen Islands". Canadian Journal of Zoology. 68 (2): 405–408. doi: 10.1139/z90-059.
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Skulls were placed on a cutting mat (57 × 640 cm, Clover), and a digital camera (D3000, Nikon) mounted on a tripod (FHD-41Q, Velbon) was used to photograph the dorsal and ventral sides, and the lateral crania and mandibles. Distance was approximately 40 cm from skull to camera. All skulls were photographed in the same place at Tokyo University of Agriculture Abashiri, Hokkaido, Japan. Adobe Photoshop CS2 was used to align the scales of the photographs. 2.2.2 Landmarks on skulls National Geographic photographer's surprise encounter with deadly predator. dpreview.com (2012-10-18)
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