The Monk Seal Babies the Monk Seal Diet
Seals are the astonishing representatives of the creature globe of our planet. They connect both marine and terrestrial lifestyles. What are seals? In general, seals are all representatives of the order Pinnipedia, which ways "fin-footed". Seals are mammals which developed real flippers instead of traditional paws. What does a seal expect like? Where do seals live? What seal species exist? Answers to all these questions and many more interesting facts about seals are found in this article.
Description and Characteristics
All seals are big animals. How much does a seal weigh? Seal weigh varies from 88 pounds (for the harbor seal) to 2200 pound (for the elephant seal) depending on the seal species.
How big are seals? Seal length varies from 1.25 meters to 6.5 meters (for the elephant seal). Many seals of the same species can change their size depending on the season since they tend to accumulate seasonal reserves of fat, which disappear in time.
Seals have sleek bodies, platonic for gliding through the water. A seal'south neck is short and thick. A seal's head is small compared to its body, but it has a flattened skull.
Do seals have fur? Yes. Seals are covered with short and difficult fur, which does not hinder their movement under h2o, and protects them from the cold. Besides this, seals have stocks of subcutaneous fat, which protects them from the Arctic and Antarctic common cold.
Seals are usually greyness or brown; some species have a speckled pattern.
When you look at a seal, it seems that this brute is very impuissant and slow on country. This is true. Seals lean on the forelimbs and the belly while moving and the hind limbs just drag on the ground. Information technology is very hard for them to move on the ground especially considering a seal's weight. All the same seals modify completely once they are in the water. They are able to accomplish speeds of upwards to 25 km per hr in the water. In add-on, the seals are excellent divers, capable of diving up to 600 one thousand in depth. Seals flippers brand them excellent swimmers and divers but clumsy walkers.
A seal's vision is not good (every bit is the case with all aquatic mammals), and all seals are short-sighted. Yet the poor eyesight is compensated by good hearing and smell, so seals can catch odors at a distance of 300-500 meters. Also this, seals have tactile vibrises (they are also called "whiskers"). They can notice their way among underwater obstacles with the help of these vibrises. Some seal species have echolocation ability, although it is several times weaker than that of whales and dolphins.
Habitat
Where do seals live? They live almost everywhere, because their marine lifestyle. Seals inhabit the coasts of the seas and oceans. Many seals live in the cold latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctic. Also this, some seals, such as the monk seal, live in the warm Mediterranean.
Lifespan
Seal lifespan depends on gender, females alive longer than males, and their life span is 35 years. Males alive on boilerplate 25 years.
Lifestyle
Seals are peace-loving creatures; they practically do not fight amid themselves, except for the mating flavour, when several males want one female, so fifty-fifty peace-loving seals can be violent in such a situation.
Seals are clumsy on the ground, so they attempt to exist closer to the water in order to swoop into the water in case of danger.
Nutrition
What do arctic seals eat? Seals are predators; the seal nutrition consists of diverse marine animals: fish, mollusks, crayfish and crabs. Big seals, such as the leopard seal may eat penguins and even other seals (from smaller species).
Enemies
Seals may become casualty of other larger marine predators: sharks, killer whales. Sometimes arctic seals may also face up danger in the grade of polar bears and people.
Seal hunting.
Species
There are 24 species of seals. We volition draw the most interesting of them.
Monk Seal
The Monk seal is the most thermophilic amidst the seals, as it prefers the warm waters of the Mediterranean, Hawaiian and Caribbean area islands, (where information technology actually lives), to the common cold Arctic and Antarctic frosts. The Monk seal is 2-3 meters. The Monk seal has a gray-brown color and a low-cal belly, through which it received the 2nd name – the white-bellied seal.
Elephant Seal
The elephant seal is the largest seal in the world; its length can reach upward to half dozen.five meters. Besides this, the elephant seal looks similar a real elephant considering its long olfactory organ. The elephant seals are divided into 2 subspecies: the northern elephant seal lives on the coast of Northward America, and the southern elephant seal lives in Antarctica.
Ross Seal
The Ross seal was named after the English explorer James Ross. The Ross seal has a very thick neck in folds, which can easily hide its caput. The Ross seal is little studied, as it lives in remote areas of Antarctica.
Leopard Seal
The leopard seal is the most dangerous and aggressive amid other seals. Sometimes, sea leopards may attack smaller seals of other species; while in general, they eat penguins. The leopard seal is the largest seal in the world, except for the elephant seal, its body length can be upwardly to 4 meters. The leopard seal lives around the coast of Antarctica.
Weddell Seal
The Weddell seal was named after English explorer James Weddell, the former commander of a enquiry expedition to the Weddell Sea. The Weddell seal stands out for its remarkable ability to dive and stay underwater – while many other seals can be no more than than 10 minutes in the depths of the sea, this seal tin swim underwater for an hour. The Weddell seal lives in Antarctica.
Harbor Seal
There are 4 subspecies of the harbor seal (depending on their habitat). The harbor seal lives in the northern Chill: on the shores of N America, Scandinavia and in the northern part of Russia. Some subspecies of the harbor seal are threatened with extinction due to their poaching.
Harp Seal
Harp seals live on the coast of Greenland. They differ from other seals past their characteristic coloration: only they have silver-grey wool, a blackness head, and a black horseshoe-shaped line, which extends from the shoulders on both sides. The harp seal is relatively minor – the length of its body is 170-180 cm.
Reproduction
Seals breed only once a yr. Their mating period usually occurs at the end of the summer. Sometimes males fight with each other for female.
Female seal pregnancy lasts for a yr, after which merely one baby is born. Baby seals have white pare. What is a baby seal called? Baby seals are chosen pups. Merely like dogs take puppies, that we tend to call pups, seals have pups.
Baby seals tin't go with their female parent in the water, so well-nigh of the fourth dimension they are on the shore or globe-trotting water ice floe. The mother seal feeds her babies with milk. Baby seals begin to grow in size rapidly until they become developed seals.
Interesting Facts
- The age of the dead seal can be adamant by the number of laps at the base of operations of its canines.
- The mother'southward milk of the female seal is the fattest in its composition (its fatty content exceeds l%). Just whales have the same fat milk.
- The seal scientific name in Latin translates equally "little guinea squealer".
- Seals can cry like people. Though, unlike u.s.a., they accept no lacrimal glands.
References and Farther Reading
- Thompson, D. & Härkönen, T. (2008). "Phoca vitulina". IUCN Ruby-red List of Threatened Species. Version 2008. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 29 January 2009.
- Linnæus, Carl (1758). Systema naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I (in Latin) (tenth ed.). Holmiæ (Stockholm): Laurentius Salvius. p. 38. Retrieved 23 Nov 2012.
- Burnie, David; Wilson, Don East. (2001). Animal. New York City: DK Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7894-7764-4.
- Bjørge, A.; Øien, N.; Hartvedt, Due south.; Bøthum, Thousand.; Bekkby, T. (2002). "Dispersal and bycatch mortality in grey, Halichoerus grypys, and harbour, Phoca vitulina, seals tagged at the Norwegian declension". Mar. Mammal Sci. 18 (iv): 963–976. doi:ten.1111/j.1748-7692.2002.tb01085.x.
- Berta, A.; Churchill, Thou. (2012). "Pinniped Taxonomy: evidence for species and subspecies". Mammal Review. 42 (3): 207–234
Writer: Pavlo Chaika, Editor-in-Master of the periodical Poznavayka
When writing this article, I tried to make it equally interesting and useful equally possible. I would be grateful for whatever feedback and effective criticism in the grade of comments to the commodity. You can besides write your wish/question/suggestion to my mail pavelchaika1983@gmail.com or to Facebook.
Source: https://www.poznavayka.org/en/zoology/seals/
0 Response to "The Monk Seal Babies the Monk Seal Diet"
Post a Comment