Animals · Ice: the Arctic and Antarctica
Harbor seal
Phoca vitulina
Sixteen hundred feet beneath the surface
- Status: Safe
- Coasts of the North Atlantic and North Pacific, within twelve miles of shore
Numbers
- Weight
- 165 lbaverage value; the male is larger than the female
- Length
- 6 ftfrom 5 to 6.5 feet
- Lifespan
- 30 years30 to 35 years in males, 20 to 25 in females
- Depth
- 1600 ftreached while hunting, while remaining close to the coast
- Pup weight at birth
- 35 lbafter nine months of pregnancy
- Maximum distance from shore
- 12 milimit beyond which it normally does not go
Ten fun facts
while remaining within twelve miles of shore, it can dive up to sixteen hundred feet deep while hunting.
its ear canal has no outer ear flap, leaving only a tiny triangular bump visible on its head.
pups are born with white baby fur that they shed during birth or just a few hours later.
a newborn pup can weigh up to thirty-five pounds, following a gestation period that lasts nine months.
if twins are born, the mother can only nurse one pup at a time, never both together.
orphaned pups are called screamers, and no other female will nurse them unless she has lost her own pup.
some seals in the herd act as sentinels and recognize the calls of killer whales, their main predators.
males live an average of thirty to thirty-five years, whereas females live only twenty to twenty-five years.
a freshwater population stranded after the ice ages still survives in Lower Seal Lake near Hudson Bay.
in Canada, forty-eight percent of pups that get trapped in fishing nets do not manage to survive.
The quiz answers
The first one is the question printed in your book: here is the answer. The other four are extra.
Question 1 of 5★ this one is in your book
How deep can the harbor seal dive?
Question 2 of 5
How much does a newborn pup weigh?
Question 3 of 5
What are pups that have lost their mother called?
Question 4 of 5
Who lives longer between males and females?
Question 5 of 5
Why do some seals act as sentinels?
Try it yourself
Look up the height of the tallest skyscraper in the world and compare it to the sixteen hundred feet this seal reaches while diving deep into the ocean.
Close your eyes and identify three objects inside a box by touch alone to see how you can use your hands just like the seal uses its whiskers.
Pack a backpack until it weighs thirty-five pounds and try to lift it to feel how heavy a newborn harbor seal pup can actually be at birth.
Data from Wikidata (Q26913) and Wikipedia (Harbor seal).