We ran into several types of seals, all engaged in the same general behavior - lounging. Saw one swimming, the rest lying belly up in the snow/ice. According to the ship's naturalists, it was quite warm for them, so they were likely trying to cool off. The first type we ran across were
Weddell seals:
The more exciting encounters were with
Leopard seals, the top of the antarctic food chain (even above Orcas). Pretty fierce predators, although there's only one documented case of them attacking a human. Nevertheless, one look at their teeth shows how easily you could become dinner. That said, we drove the zodiacs right up to their icefloats, several times. They would raise their heads in a "I could eat you if I chose, but am full at the moment" sort of way.
We also came across
Crabeater seals doing what? Loafing. One thing I found surprising about our seal encounters, no large colonies such as those we saw with penguins. I expected to see them covering a shoreline at one point, but never more than 6 at a time. The final picture is from Nathalie Michel.
We ran into several types of seals, all engaged in the same general behavior - lounging. Saw one swimming, the rest lying belly up in the snow/ice. According to the ship's naturalists, it was quite warm for them, so they were likely trying to cool off. The first type we ran across were Weddell seals:
The more exciting encounters were with Leopard seals, the top of the antarctic food chain (even above Orcas). Pretty fierce predators, although there's only one documented case of them attacking a human. Nevertheless, one look at their teeth shows how easily you could become dinner. That said, we drove the zodiacs right up to their icefloats, several times. They would raise their heads in a "I could eat you if I chose, but am full at the moment" sort of way. 
We also came across Crabeater seals doing what? Loafing. One thing I found surprising about our seal encounters, no large colonies such as those we saw with penguins. I expected to see them covering a shoreline at one point, but never more than 6 at a time. The final picture is from Nathalie Michel.
4 comments:
Hi Sue,
What can one say but -- Wow! Nice pictures, especially of the penguins. I haven't caught up yet, but wanted to let you know that I don't see an seal pics, even though I reloaded the page. Possibly something on my end?
It should be fixed now. It wasn't you, it's a dumb blogger.com thing.
Sure, we *know* its not a Mac thing ;-)
But they look great. Nasty teeth those guys have...
That goes without saying. Macs are perfect.
The leopard seal has the anterior dentition of a carnivore, the posterior are specialized for krill. Ultimate Antarctic omnivore. Pretty cool (even for teeth).
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