RINGED SEAL 



This seal is perhaps the smallest of all pinnipeds. It is the com- 

 monest seal among the ice floes of the Bering Sea, where it is of great 

 value to the natives, but of no commercial importance. At St. Lawrence 

 Island the Eskimos associate the appearance of netsik with an early 

 spring and breakup of ice. A few are taken among the ice floes of the 

 Okhotsk Sea by Japanese sealers. It keeps holes open in the ice through 

 which it breathes. 



Description 



The adult male attains a length of 5 feet 7 inches; the female 4 feet 

 10 inches; maximum weight of both sexes about 200 pounds. The new- 

 born pup is said to measure up to 35 inches in length and weigh up to 40 

 pounds. Although the markings of the ringed seal are usually ring 

 shaped and tend to flow together to give a dark area on the back, the 

 color and pattern are variable and may be confused with the harbor seal. 

 The ringed seal differs from the harbor seal in having conspicuously 

 heavier claws on its foreflippers, one less cusp on the cheek teeth of the 

 upper jaw, and a very narrow bridge between the eye sockets. The new- 

 born pup is covered with a white woolly coat. 



Range 



Never far from the pack ice in Bering and Chukchi Seas; to the 

 Pribilof Islands on the south; circumpolar in the Arctic. 



Breeding habits 



The young are born on the ice in snow or ice caves in April. The 

 pup remains on the ice for 4 to 6 weeks. The mating time of the Bering 

 Sea species is unknown, but in Europe the ringed seal mates about a 

 month after the birth of the pup. 



Feeding habits 



The ringed seal has' a most unusual habit, for a seal, of pursuing 

 and eating small free-swimming crustaceans and mollusks no larger 

 than a pea. It also rounds out its diet with small fishes, especially of 

 the cod f amilyo 



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