Leptonychotes weddelli

• Main Authors: Russell A. Mittermeier, Don E. Wilson
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Lynx Edicions 2014
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Chordata; Mammalia; Carnivora; Phocidae; Leptonychotes; Leptonychotes weddelli; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; Weddell; South Orkney Islands; South Georgia Island; Foca; Antarc*; Antarctica; Weddell Seal; Weddell Seals
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/6606908; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6606908

6. Weddell Seal Leptonychotes weddelli French: Phoque de Weddell / German: \Weddell-Robbe / Spanish: Foca de Weddell Other common names: \Weddell's Seal Taxonomy. Otaria weddellii Lesson, 1826, “sur les cotes des Orcades australes, situées sour 60 degrés 37 minutes de lat” (= South Orkney Island in British Antarctic Trust Territory). This species is monotypic. Distribution. Circumpolar in the Southern Ocean. Descriptive notes. Total length 280-290 cm (males) and 300-330 cm (females); weight ¢.400-600 kg (males and females). Newborns are ¢.120 cm in length and weigh ¢.25-30 kg. Weddell Seals are relatively large-bodied, robust seals with small heads and relatively short front flippers. Pelage of an adult Weddell Seal is short and generally dark bluish black to brown dorsally and lighter gray ventrally, with pale blotches and streaks over the entire body. Neonates have a light brown to gray woolly lanugo (fine, soft hair) that is molted c.2-3 weeks after birth. Weddell Seals have large,slightly forward-pointing canine teeth and incisors that firmly snap at and catch fish and other prey and, at times, also are used to keep breathing holes open. Habitat. Fast ice (ice fastened to land) and pack ice of Antarctica. Primary breeding colonies of Weddell Seals are in fast-ice habitats abutting Antarctica at scattered locations, but there are also small land-breeding colonies in the South Shetland and South Orkney Islands and farther north at South Georgia Island. Recent studies have found non-reproductive adult and juvenile Weddell Seals in pack-ice habitats in the Ross, Amundsen, and Bellingshausen seas, where they apparently remain for several years before returning to coastal breeding colonies. Food and Feeding. Weddell Seals eat Antarctic cod (Dissostichus mawsoni) and smaller aggregating nototheniid fish that are endemic to Antarctica; squid and other invertebrates also represent small percentages of diets. They feed in the water column and near the seafloor at depths of ¢.600 m but occasionally as deep as 1000 m. ...