Antarctic Seals
| There are six types of seals living in Antarctica and I was able to see all species except for the ross seal. The ross seal likes to live on block ice where ships can't pass, so they do a good job of remaining away from people. Because of this, they are the least known seal species compared to the other 5 species. All seals spend most of their life in the water, but they have to return to land to breed. |
| The top two pictures are of leopard seals resting on floating ice bergs. Leopard seals and killer whales are Antarctica's number one predators and enjoy living at the top of the food chain. The most famous of the six is probably the leopard seal because it often hunts penguins and even other seals. They are the only seal to hunt warm blooded pray, all other seals only hunt things such as fish and krill for example. This is the only recorded incident, but in 2003 a scientist entered the water and was attacked and killed by a leopard seal. |
| These last two seals are crabeaters. You can recognize them because of their size and they also have more of a whitish appearance. The crabeater seal on the left was moving back and forth trying to scratch his back. On the right is a crabeater sleeping near a giant piece of ice. |
| These two seals are fur seals and they were one of my favorite. As you can see they keep themselves warm by a layer of fur instead of fat like the other seals of Antarctica. Most seals I saw were laying around and didn't move much. The fur seals always seemed active. The fur seal on the upper right stood up after we got a little too close. He then began to swing his head back and forth as if he didn't know what to do. |
| The seals above are the nastiest of them all. They are elephant seals and they literally let out loud burps every few minutes and blow snot on each other. They are fat dirty seals that basically seemed like a bunch of pigs to me. On the right you can see the elephant seal in the center of the group warning me not to get closer. Elephant seals generally live in the most northern parts of Antarctica. These seals were all seen in the South Shetland Islands. |
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| On the left is a smiling weddell seal enjoying some Antarctic sun. They are known for their deep dives that can go down to 2300 feet, almost half a mile! On the right is another seal checking me out as he swims by. |
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