Erignathus barbatus

• 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; Erignathus; Erignathus barbatus; Arctic; Laptev Sea; Okhotsk; Greenland; Pacific; Lawrence Island; Foca; Barbu; Bartrobbe; bearded seal; foca barbuda; laptev; North Atlantic; Phoque barbu; Subarctic; Alaska
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/6606912; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6606912

9. Bearded Seal Erignathus barbatus French: Phoque barbu / German: Bartrobbe / Spanish: Foca barbuda Other common names: Squareflipper; Atlantic Bearded Seal (barbatus); Pacific Bearded Seal (nauticus) Taxonomy. Phoca barbata Erxleben, 1777, “ad Scotiam atque Groelandiam australiorem, vulgaris circa Islandiam” (= North Atlantic Ocean, South Greenland). Two subspecies are recognized. Subspecies and Distribution. E.b.barbatusErxleben,1777—NAtlanticandArcticoceansfromtheCCanadianArctictoBarentsandLaptevseas. E. b. nauticus Pallas, 1881 — Arctic and subarctic oceans E of Laptev Sea to the C Canadian Arctic,also petion Sea and Sea of Okhotsk S to Hokkaido, Japan. Descriptive notes. Total length 210-250 cm; weight 250-450 kg. Newborns are c.130 cm in length and weigh c.34 kg. Bearded Seals are large-bodied, with relatively small heads, long slender bodies, square front flippers, and prominent facial whiskers. Adult females are somewhat larger than males. Offspring have lanugo (fine, soft hair) in utero that is shed just before birth when they then have silver-blue to brown pelage. Adult Bearded Seals are uniformly gray to dark brown, slightly darker dorsally, and have scattered splotches over their bodies. Hair is short and shed in April-August, with a peak in May-June. One relatively unique characteristic, shared only with monk seals (Monachus spp.), is that Breaded Seals have four teats rather than two teats as in all other phocid carnivores. Habitat. Widely but patchily distributed in Arctic and subarctic regions of the North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans. Bearded Seals are typically found in areas with broken free-floating pack ice, and because of their benthic feeding habits, they live primarily in shallow waters overlying continental shelves such as in the Bering and Barents seas. For example, south of Saint Lawrence Island, Alaska, in late winter, Bearded Seals avoided large ice floes (more than 48 m in diameter) and preferred areas of freefloating pack ice between large and small (less than 20 m in ...