Leopard seal

Appearance

The leopard seal is large and muscular, with a dark grey back and light grey on its stomach. Its throat is whitish with the black spots that give the seal its common name. Females are slightly larger than the males. The overall length of this seal is 2.4–3.5 m and weight is from 200 to 600 kilograms . They are about the same length as the northern walrus, but usually less than half the weight.

Its front teeth are sharp like those of other carnivores, but its molars lock together in a way that allows them to sieve krill from the water, in the manner of the crabeater seal.

Behavior

The leopard seal lives in the cold waters surrounding Antarctica. During the summer months, it hunts among the pack ice surrounding the continent, spending almost all of its time in the water. In the winter, it ranges north to the sub-Antarctic islands. Occasionally, individuals may be spotted on the southern coasts of Argentina, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand, and as far north as the Cook Islands. Juveniles are more often found in the north.

The leopard seal is a solitary creature and comes together in small groups only when it is time to mate. During the mating season, males and females make acoustic calls to each other over distances, with at least the males having individual variability in their vocalising sequence patterns. After a 9-month gestation, the female digs a hole in the ice, and gives birth to a single pup during the Antarctic summer. She protects the pup until it is able to fend for itself.

Leopard seals are not very vocal, although they occasionally make some grunting and growling noises.

The leopard seal is bold, powerful and curious. In the water, there is a fine line between curiosity and predatory behaviour, and it may 'play' with penguins it does not intend to eat. There are also records of leopard seals attacking divers. Paul Nicklen, a National Geographic magazine photographer, captured pictures of a leopard seal bringing live, injured, and then dead penguins to him, possibly in an attempt to teach the photographer how to hunt.

Food

The leopard seal is second only to the killer whale among Antarctica's top predators. Its canine teeth are 2.5 cm . It feeds on a wide variety of creatures. Smaller seals probably eat mostly krill, but also squid and fish. Larger leopard seals probably switch from krill to more substantial prey, including king, adelie, rockhopper, gentoo, emperor, and chinstrap penguins, and less frequently, other seals, such as crabeater seal.

Around the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, the Antarctic fur seal is the main prey. Other prey include penguins and fish. Antarctic krill , southern elephant seal pups and seabirds other than penguins have also been found in leopard seal scats in small quantities.

When hunting penguins, the leopard seal patrols the waters near the edges of the ice, almost completely submerged, waiting for the birds to enter the ocean. It kills the swimming bird by grabbing the feet, then shaking the penguin vigorously and beating its body against the surface of the water repeatedly until the penguin is dead. Previous reports stating the leopard seal skins its prey before feeding have been found to be incorrect. Lacking the teeth necessary to slice its prey into manageable pieces, it flails its prey from side to side to tear and rip it into smaller pieces.