Crabeater Seal
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Order: Carnivora
Family: Phocidae

[Photo] Crabeater Seal (Lobodon carcinophagus). Photo taken by: Mike Cameron. Source: National Marine Mammal Laboratory (part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) - http://nmml.afsc.noaa.gov

The Crabeater Seal, Lobodon carcinophagus, is one of the most remarkable, though least known, of the mammals of the world. At a population of 8 to 50 million (LAWS 1973), it is perhaps the "second most numerous large species of mammals on Earth, after humans." More than one in every two seals in the world is a Crabeater Seal and the population biomass of Crabeaters is about four times that of all other pinnipeds put together.

Despite its name, its diet does not include crabs. Instead, a crabeater seal's unusual multilobed teeth enable this species to sieve krill from the water. Its dentition looks like a perfect strainer, but how it operates in detail is still unknown. 98% of the Crabeater Seal's food consists of Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba. The seals consume over 80 million tons of krill each year. They live and reproduce in the pack ice zone around Antarctica.

Males grow to about 2.2 m to about 2.6 m and weigh roughly between 200 and 300 kg. After molting seasons the fur of the crab eater seal is dark brown fading to blonde on its belly. These seals also have dark brown mailings along the back and sides. The fur lightens through out the year, becoming completely blonde in summer. Crab eaters’ have long snouts and slender bodies. Crab eater seals have distinctive and complex teeth. Each tooth has tubercles, or bony protuberances with spaces between them. The upper and lower jaws fit together so that when the mouth closes the teeth and the tubercles can strain krill.

Females grow up to 3.6 m (142 in) in length and 500 lb (230 kg) in weight. Crabeater Seals colonized Antarctica during the late Miocene or early Pliocene (15 - 25 million years ago), at a time when the region was much warmer than today. The evolution into this strange, successful and abundant animal can be taken as a token of the bounty and continuity of krill.

Pups are born about 1.2 metres in length and weigh between 20 and 30 kilograms. While nursing, pups grow at a rate of about 4.2 kilograms a day. They are weaned after 2-3 weeks.

The seal's background colour is mainly silvery-grey when newly moulted, or golden to creamy white when the coat has faded. Older animals become progressively paler, even when freshly moulted, and may appear almost white. In younger animals, there are net-like, chocolate-brown markings and flecks on the shoulders, sides and flanks, shading into the predominantly dark hind and fore flippers and head.

Explorer and naturalist E.A.Wilson, who accompanied British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on the 1910-1913 Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole, recorded that the Crabeater seal will, when close to death, leave the pack and travel far up glaciers to die. He observed Crabeater carcasses on a number of occasions, "thirty miles from the sea-shore and 3,000 feet (910 m) above sea-level".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crabeater_Seal

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