What is the diet of a Weddell seal?
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What is the diet of a Weddell seal?
Weddell seals are carnivores. Their food varies with time and location but mid-water (pelagic) and bottom dwelling (benthic) fish, squid, octopus and prawns are common. One seal was repeatedly observed to capture a fish weighing more than 40 kg.
Do Weddell seals eat krill?
Weddell seals are carnivores. They eat a variety of different sea animals including fish, crustaceans, krill, squid, octopus, and prawns. Weddell seals use various tactics to catch their prey. They have been known to swim under the ice and use the light from above the ice to identify fish.
How do Weddell seals survive in Antarctica?
Weddell seals keep breathing holes in the ice open by rasping back and forth with their teeth, this allows them to live further south than any other mammal. They can swim large distances between breathing holes and cracks, finding the next hole using a form of sonar with high pitched sounds.
Are Weddell seals friendly?
Weddell seals are very friendly, easygoing and don’t hide from our research team. They are philopatric, which means that they return to their birthplace to give birth to their own pups.
Why do seals eat ice?
Meanwhile, adult seals also need the ice as protection from predators and a food source. Harp seals, for example, feed on small crustaceans and fish that hang out around the edges of sea ice — so less ice means less food.
How do you pronounce Weddell?
Phonetic spelling of Weddell
- Wed-dell.
- wed-del-l.
- w-EH-d-uh-l.
What fish do seals in Antarctica eat?
Weddell seals mainly eat fish. Among their favorites are the Antarctic toothfish—which makes its way to market as the Chilean sea bass—and the Antarctic silverfish.
How do Weddell seals survive in the cold?
Adaptations. Most people will quickly point to the Weddell seal’s adaptations for surviving the cold. They have dense fur and thick blubber which keep them warm despite the low temperatures they encounter above and below the ice. This seal was braving a harsh day out on the sea ice.
What do seals do to survive?
Seals are well adapted to cold polar environments with thick blubber layers that act both as a food reserve and insulation. Most seals also have a layer of fur, giving additional insulation on land.
What does Weddell mean?
noun. : a vocal Antarctic hair seal (Leptonychotes weddelli) noted for its deep dives in search of food.
Can seals eat vegetables?
Seals are carnivorous meaning their diet is composed of meat. Their diet includes mainly fish. They also eat penguins, octopuses, lobsters, salmons, eels, mackerel, and squids.
Do seals eat meat?
Seals eat shrimp, octopus, fish, and krill. As carnivores, seals eat aquatic animals, mostly fish. However, some seals have a surprisingly varied diet. The endangered New Zealand sea lion, for example, eats not only fish but squid and octopus and crustaceans such as shrimp.
Do seals eat dogs?
Daoust said seals eat only fish, and almost never attack humans or dogs.
Do seals drink salt water?
They get their fresh water that they need from the fish they eat. When they haven’t eaten for awhile, the water comes from burning their blubber. When living in the sea, they naturally ‘drink’ salt water occasionally. Their kidneys are specially adapted to separating that salt and ridding it via the urine.
