Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Phocidae > Lobodon > Lobodon carcinophaga

Lobodon carcinophaga (Crabeater Seal)

Synonyms: Lobodon carcinophagus; Ogmorhinus carcinophaga; Phoca carcinophaga; Stenorhynchus serridens

Wikipedia Abstract

The crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophaga or carcinophagus) is a true seal with a circumpolar distribution around the coast of Antarctica. 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 extends seasonally out from the Antarctic coast, which they use as a platform for resting, mating, social aggregation and accessing their prey. They are by far the most abundant seal species in the world. While population estimates are uncertain, there are at least 7 million and possibly as many as 75 million individuals. This success of this species is due to its specialized predation on the abundant Antarctic krill of the Southern Ocean, for which it has uniquely adapted, sieve-like tooth structure. Indeed, its s
View Wikipedia Record: Lobodon carcinophaga

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
6
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
28
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 12.4
EDGE Score: 2.6
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Gestation [2]  8 months 19 days
Litter Size [2]  1
Litters / Year [2]  1
Maximum Longevity [4]  39 years
Migration [1]  Intraoceanic
Nocturnal [1]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  7.938 feet (242 cm)
Water Biome [1]  Pelagic, Coastal
Weaning [2]  28 days
Adult Weight [2]  551.159 lbs (250.00 kg)
Birth Weight [2]  50.707 lbs (23.00 kg)
Diet [3]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [3]  100 %
Forages - Marine [3]  100 %
Female Maturity [2]  4 years
Male Maturity [2]  4 years 6 months

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Macquarie Island Nature Reserve Ia 233540 Tasmania, Australia  
Palmer LTER Site Long Term Ecological Research   Antarctica    
Tierra Del Fuego National Park II 172861 Argentina

Ecosystems

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Hydrurga leptonyx (Leopard seal)[6]
Orcinus orca (Killer Whale)[6]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Who's Eating Who
♦ 7Food of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) in the western Ross Sea, Antarctica, Y. Cherel and G. L. Kooyman, Marine Biology (1998) 130: 335-344
♦ 8Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
♦ 9Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0