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The Weddell seal [2] (Leptonychotes weddellii) is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica.The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by British sealing captain James Weddell to the area of the Southern Ocean now known as the Weddell Sea. [3]
The skull of the leopard seal. The leopard seal has a distinctively long and muscular body shape when compared to other seals. The overall length of adults is 2.4–3.5 m (7.9–11.5 ft) and their weight is in the range 200 to 600 kilograms (440 to 1,320 lb), making them the same length as the northern walrus but usually less than half the weight.
The crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophaga), also known as the krill-eater seal, is a true seal with a circumpolar distribution around the coast of Antarctica. They are the only member of the genus Lobodon. They are medium- to large-sized (over 2 m in length), relatively slender and pale-colored, found primarily on the free-floating pack ice that ...
M. leonina. Elephant seals or sea elephants are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus Mirounga. Both species, the northern elephant seal (M. angustirostris) and the southern elephant seal (M. leonina), were hunted to the brink of extinction for oil by the end of the 19th century, but their numbers have since recovered.
Pinniped. Pinnipeds (pronounced / ˈpɪnɪˌpɛdz /), commonly known as seals, [a] are a widely distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin -footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae (whose only living member is the walrus), Otariidae (the eared seals: sea lions and fur seals), and Phocidae ...
Earless seal. The earless seals, phocids, or true seals are one of the three main groups of mammals within the seal lineage, Pinnipedia. All true seals are members of the family Phocidae (/ ˈfoʊsɪdiː /). They are sometimes called crawling seals to distinguish them from the fur seals and sea lions of the family Otariidae.
Weddell seal. The North-west White Island Antarctic Specially Protected Area comprises a 142 km 2 area of coastal shelf ice on the north-west side of White Island in the Ross Archipelago of Antarctica.The site has been designated an Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA 137) because it supports an unusual small breeding population of Weddell seals, which is not only the most southerly known ...
Overall the continent's extremely cold air does not hold enough moisture for significant snowfall. The annual snowfall on Ross Island averages only 17.6 centimetres (6.9 in). Snowfall in Antarctica's interior is far less at 5 centimetres (2.0 in). Snow seldom accumulates on the McMurdo Dry Valleys on the western shores of McMurdo Sound.