Sea leopard. Leopard seal lifestyle and habitat
From the family of true seals. Like its terrestrial namesake from, the leopard seal is and is at the top. The only animal that preys on leopard seals is the killer whale.
Leopard seals are distributed in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters of the Ross Sea, Antarctic Peninsula, Weddell Sea, South Georgia Island and the Falkland Islands. They are sometimes found along the southern coasts of New Zealand and South. Despite the fact that the habitat leopard seal overlaps with other seals, this species is easy to identify.
Leopard seal always smiles
You might think it's obvious distinctive feature The only thing a leopard seal has is its skin is covered with spots. However, many seals have spots. What distinguishes this species is its elongated head and sinuous body, somewhat reminiscent of a furry eel. Body length varies between 3-3.7 meters (females are slightly larger than males), and they weigh 350-450 kg. These animals always appear to be smiling because the edges of their mouths are turned up. The leopard seal is a large animal, but smaller than the elephant seal and walrus.
Leopard seals are predators
The leopard seal can feed on almost any other species. Like others, representatives of this species have sharp front teeth and long fangs. However, the animal's molars snap together to form a sieve that allows the krill to be filtered from the water. The hatchlings primarily eat krill, but once they learn to hunt, they feed on penguins, squid, shellfish, fish and small seals. These are the only seals that regularly hunt warm-blooded prey. These predators often wait for prey underwater and then attack it.
One leopard seal tried to feed the photographer
Leopard seals are extremely dangerous predators. While attacks on humans are rare, signs of aggressive behavior, harassment and even deaths have been documented. These animals are known to overturn inflatable boats, creating an indirect risk for humans.
However, not all human encounters are threatening. When National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen dove into Antarctic waters to observe animal behavior, the female he photographed brought back injured and dead penguins. It is unknown whether this animal was trying to feed the photographer, teach him how to hunt, or had other motives.
They can play with their food
Leopard seals are known to play cat and mouse with their prey, usually young seals or . They will chase their prey until it runs away or dies, but will not necessarily eat the prey. Scientists are not sure of the reason for this behavior, but believe that it helps hone their hunting skills or is a form of entertainment.
Leopard seals sing underwater
In early summer, male leopard seals sing loudly underwater for several hours every day. When singing, the animal raises the back of its body up, bends its neck, flares its nostrils and sways from side to side. Each male has a distinctive song, and this may change with age. The singing coincides with the breeding season. Females are also known to sing when hormone levels rise during estrus.
These are solitary animals
The exceptions are females with cubs and pairs during the breeding season. Leopard seals copulate in the summer, with a gestation period of about 11 months, at the end of which one cub is born. Feeding the offspring with mother's milk lasts about a month. Females become sexually mature between three and seven years of age. Males mature slightly later, usually between six and seven years of age. The average life expectancy is 12 to 15 years.
The species is not endangered
According to the National Oceanic Administration atmospheric research(NOAA), believed that there may be more than 200,000 leopard seals. The changes have dramatically affected the species these predators feed on, so this number is likely inaccurate. International Union The Nature Conservancy (IUCN) lists the species as "least endangered".
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The leopard seal is considered one of the most powerful, ferocious and dangerous Arctic predators. It belongs to the seal family. The leopard seal lives in the Southern Ocean, right up to the edge of the drifting ice, and in all arctic seas.
Bloodthirsty sea predator does not, like other seals, like ice rookeries, preferring proud loneliness to large companies. That is why at first glance it may seem that there are not so many individuals of this seal species. But in fact, there are more than half a million of these predators.
The leopard seal looks very different from all the others; its long, snake-like body looks more graceful than that of its fellows, and has practically no thick layer of fat. The presence of two rows of powerful sharp teeth and fangs in the predator’s mouth makes it clear that this animal feeds mainly on meat.
His enormous weight and body length also speak about his strength and power. Moreover, females are much larger than males. For comparison: if an adult male with a three-meter length can “pull” 280 kilograms, then females reach a four-meter length and weigh more than four centners!
Leopard seals have a slightly flattened head, dark gray in color, with many dark spots. The back and sides of predators have the same color. But the belly is striking in its sharp whiteness. Apparently, the spotty color of the seal and, perhaps, its ferocity also gave people the idea to call it a leopard.
Preferring solitude , Leopard seals only unite in packs for short periods. Moreover, these groups do not exceed 5 or 6 individuals. Usually " Honeymoon» leopard weddings fall in the summer. But on these days, dedicated to “love,” the ferocious seal remains true to himself, because the process of fertilization of females takes place without mating and courtship, right in the water.
The female carries the future offspring for eleven months, giving birth to a thirty-kilogram cub, usually in early summer, right on the ice. By the way, the mother of a leopard seal is not distinguished by excess tenderness towards her one and a half meter baby: she feeds the baby with her milk for only a month, and then leaves him to his fate.
And so, starting from the age of one month, the baby leopard is forced to independently obtain food for itself in the water. However, the death of young animals is practically not observed, these predators are so strong and invincible, even very small cubs.
The female can mate for the first time at the age of three. For the male, in order to feel in himself “ masculinity", it takes a little longer - 4 years. A leopard seal lives on average for a quarter of a century.
The main diet of the marine predator consists of crustaceans, fish and cephalopods. But woe betide the gape, or the Leopard, sometimes allowing itself to lie next to the adult pinnipeds of its neighbors, will not think of sparing their baby: and I don’t really want to violate the diet...
Of course, sometimes a predator gets to feast on birds. But penguins suffer the most from the evil killer: as you know, they cannot fly.
By the way, regarding taste preferences sea leopard. Some individuals choose an exclusively penguin diet, while others show a preference for young seal meat.
But the worst thing is that a person can become a delicious dinner for this sea animal. It is especially dangerous to be close to the edge of the ice. A leopard can suddenly jump out of the water and grab unwary prey. If the victim manages to escape from the tenacious teeth, then the predator pursues it on the ice.
In the water, the leopard feels, as they say, like a fish: it can stay under it for more than half an hour, and during the swim it develops a speed of more than 40 kilometers per hour, diving to a depth of three hundred meters.
The leopard seal belongs to the class of wild animals. He is one of the most ferocious and strong predators. This animal belongs to the seal family. Its habitat is all the Antarctic seas of the Southern Ocean. And although the territorial habitat of the leopard seal is very vast, the number of these animals is relatively small and numbers about half a million individuals. It is very difficult to notice these bloodthirsty animals, since they never arrange mass rookeries, but prefer solitude to large and fussy groups.
The leopard seal is the largest seal that feeds on krill and prefers shallow depths. However, it also gained fame as a predator, hunting large animals.
On numerous occasions, people have seen leopard seals mauling penguins, crabeater seals, fur seals, and even adult female elephant seals. The leopard kills for fat - the most valuable biofuel in cold conditions. However, hunting for warm-blooded animals is seasonal and only diversifies the diet, which also includes squid and different types fish, but which is firmly based on krill. Only a small number of leopard seals stay near penguin colonies and fur seal rookeries at a time when young animals first go into the water and therefore become easy prey. Basically, these large seals drift on ice floes along the Antarctic Peninsula, rafting along the “river” of krill, and by winter they gather in large quantities near South Georgia - one of the richest regions in Antarctica.
Leopard seals are giant seals. The maximum officially recorded length is 3.8 meters from nose to tail. However, there were animals exceeding these sizes.
Typically, leopard seals spend the day snoring peacefully on ice floes and feed at night, when clouds of krill rise from the depths to the surface of the water.
Externally, the leopard seal is very different from other seals. Its body is very long, its neck is thin and graceful. The head of this animal is flattened, somewhat reminiscent of a snake. Even though this animal reaches a very large size, it has virtually no subcutaneous fat. Interesting feature This type of wild animals is that females are larger than males, their weight reaches 400 kilograms with a body length of about 4 meters. Male individuals with a weight of 270 kilograms grow up to 3 meters. These animals have a peculiar contrasting body color, top part which is covered with dark gray spots, and the lower part of the body is usually white. Their fur is relatively short. Thanks to their ferocious temperament and coloring, these seals got their name.
These leopard seals live alone all their lives, only in at a young age they can unite into small communities of up to 5-6 animals. No courtship or mating games take place before mating, which takes place right on the water in summer period. These animals cannot be called romantics; rather, their behavior is characterized by cold calculation. The female's pregnancy lasts 11 months. Small cubs are born weighing about 30 kilograms and measuring about one and a half meters tall, right on the ice in late spring or early summer.
In autumn, leopard predators change their lifestyle and approach the shore, from which inexperienced but very fat young penguins and fur seals descend into the water.
Every spring, hundreds of thousands of these clumsy birds colonize the beaches of the Blue Continent. Their populations are large. However, like themselves. Penguins are something of an ecological success; They are arguably the most prosperous group of birds on the planet. The irony of nature is that the key to the prosperity of these birds that have given up flight lies in that very refusal. The secret to penguins' success lies in their physiological characteristics: solid bones, viscous fat and a muscular body that allow them to dive much deeper than any other bird.
This gives penguins access to resources that are inaccessible to other birds - krill, fish and squid, after which they “fly”, flapping their fin wings to depths of up to 200 meters.
Penguins are very slow on land, but incredibly agile underwater. Speed and agility feeds them and gives them an advantage over predators - Navy SEALs, killer whales and leopard seals. It is almost impossible to catch an adult healthy penguin in the water. Danger awaits young birds that have not yet reached safe diving speeds. In addition, the chicks are often fatter and more well-fed than their parents, who for several months devoted all their strength to the new generation.
A hunting leopard usually waits for its victims under the cover of icebergs or in shallow water in front of a penguin colony.
Sensing danger, the birds are in no hurry to enter the water. They hang around the edge, waiting for the daredevil who will be the first to jump into the wave, and then the rest will rush headlong after him.
Having lost patience, the predator rolls out of the water onto the shore towards the desired fat penguins. Going to the beach won't do him any good: penguins are slow on land, but they can be lightning bolts compared to a leopard seal. The birds retreat just a few steps and become inaccessible to the teeth of the beast - the agility and lethality of the leopard remained in the water, revealing its clumsiness and clumsiness. As the penguins cackle, the predator slides back into the water.
Now all he can do is wait.
The leopard seal has the profile of a prehistoric animal, the intelligence of a dolphin and the killing power of a shark. This is one of the most savvy and intelligent marine mammals. A bird caught in the mouth of a predator is doomed.
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Of all the seals, only leopard seals are considered true hunters. And it is this type of seal that is at the top of the food chain in the World Ocean. They were dubbed leopard seals by the first Antarctic explorers because of their characteristic coloring: they are “yellowish-brown, with brown spots” animals, wrote Frank Worsley, captain of the ship Endurance, one of the participants in Ernest Shackleton’s famous Antarctic expedition of 1914. The seals, reaching 3.6 meters in length and weighing more than 450 kilograms, move with amazing agility and speed. They usually watch for penguins or other prey, cruising along the edge of drifting ice.
When in Southern Hemisphere Summer comes, leopard seals move closer to large penguin colonies - predators wait in the shallow water for newly fledged chicks setting off on their first sea voyage. The structure of a seal's teeth can reveal a lot about how they hunt. Their fangs and incisors are adapted to catch and tear prey into pieces. The back molars have sharp edges - to hold and crush food and to strain out krill. The menu of leopard seals is surprisingly varied: krill, penguins, other seals, fish, squid - everything that comes along the way. Their diet even includes relatives - baby crabeater seals, and near the island of South Georgia - baby Kerguelen fur seals.
“When I first saw a leopard seal, I was horrified,” recalls Swedish cinematographer Göran Ehlme.Leopard seals swim as far north as the coast of Australia, South America And South Africa. But the main place of accumulation of these animals is the subpolar Antarctica. Here, despite their relatively modest size, they play the role of “top predator,” like lions in Africa.
Swedish cinematographer Göran Ehlme spent many years studying the life of these seals at sea, observing their behavior during underwater dives. “When I first saw a leopard seal, I was horrified,” he recalls. He was even more frightened by stories about leopard seals attacking humans.
Thus, one of the seals attacked a member of the Shackleton expedition, Thomas Orde-Lys. Thomas was skiing on drifting ice when a leopard seal jumped out of the water and rushed after him. Orde-Lys ran as fast as he could. Then the seal dived and continued to chase him under the ice, guided by the shadow, then climbed out onto the ice again, right in front of Thomas. He called for help, and the seal was shot and killed by expedition chief assistant Frank Wild.
There is a known case of a leopard seal attack on a person, which ended in death. In July 2003, off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, a seal attacked marine biologist Kirsty Brown (she was 28 years old). She was diving not far from the shore, a leopard seal swam up to her, dragged her under the water and did not allow her to rise to the surface. The woman drowned, all attempts to bring her back to life ended in failure. This was the first time that an encounter with a leopard seal resulted in the death of a person.
Still, reports of seal hostility are greatly exaggerated, says Ehlme. “In moments of danger, people believe that animals are hostile to them,” he says. – Leopard seals are just very curious. I always tell submariners: “If you are scared, close your eyes for a minute: the seal will not bite you, although it will try to get closer.” However, at Antarctic research stations, all scuba divers are advised to leave the water when these animals appear.
Photographer Paul Nicklen followed all of Ehlme's advice and noted that leopard seals can be quite friendly: on several occasions, a seal located a few centimeters away from him offered him its prey - a piece of penguin or the entire carcass. So you shouldn't rely on other people's stories. You can truly get to know the life of animals only by exploring them in natural environment a habitat.
We were inspired to write a note about the leopard seal by the stunning photographs of Canadian photographer Paul Nicklen, who managed to capture the underwater hunting of a leopard seal on penguins. Moreover, contrary to the popular belief that these predatory animals are extremely aggressive towards humans, he claims that this sea animal showed unusual curiosity towards him and even tried to feed him with those caught especially for him.
Leopard seals, despite their quite friendly appearance, are very dangerous predators. They, along with killer whales, instill fear and terror in all seals and penguins. As soon as this animal opens its huge mouth, large fangs appear to the world. And then you immediately understand that it is better not to encounter this animal anywhere else, except in aquariums and zoos.
Mouth of a leopard seal Leopard seals roam the vastness of almost all Antarctic seas. Migrating or simply lost individuals are found in the region of Australia, New Zealand and near Tierra del Fuego. They can often be found on ice floes, where they bask in the warm rays of the sun or quietly snore.
Habitat of leopard seals 
At first glance, the leopard seal could be mistaken for an ordinary seal, if not for its more large sizes and a spotted skin, thanks to which this sea predator got its cat-like name.
Spotted skin Unlike other true seals, male leopards are smaller than females. Their body length reaches 3-3.1 meters, while in females it is up to 4 meters. Coloring, like many others large inhabitants seas, protective - it has a dark gray back and a silver belly.
On the shores of New Zealand 
The streamlined shape of the body allows the leopard seal to reach high speeds during hunting - up to 40 km/h and dive to a depth of 300 meters, so escaping this predator is not an easy task.
The shape of his head is periodically compared to the head of snakes or turtles. The front fins have an elongated shape, allowing the animal to accelerate to such high speeds.
He does not make friends with his relatives. Prefers a solitary lifestyle. Pairs of leopard seals can only be seen during the breeding season, which lasts from November to February. Mating occurs in water. And already in September - January a single cub is born. The period of lactation (milk feeding) does not last long - about 4 weeks. The female then teaches him to hunt small prey, such as fish or krill. They are still too small for hunting seals or penguins.
Female with cub 
Puberty occurs at the age of 3-4 years, which is quite early, considering that they average duration life is about 26 years.
The leopard seal does not stand on ceremony with its lunch. Its menu mainly consists of krill (about 45%) and seal meat. Penguins make up only 10% of his usual diet. They hunt mostly in water, where they kill their prey.
Populations of this animal species in this moment nothing is in danger. Now there are about 400 thousand of them in the world.
