Walk Around Turtle Island

19/02/2025

Native Words Additional
What you see # 052.

(Chipewyan language)

Long johns yút’ár nenéth

19/02/2025

(RNS) — The Trump administration is already the most harmful to religious freedom in modern American history.

19/02/2025

19/02/2025

The last-minute decision to rescind the layoff order for IHS came as healthcare workers waited for bad news

18/02/2025

Native Words Additional
At the Zoo # 126.

The controversy over the harvest killing of their
pups for their white fur coat, made this species an icon of international wildlife conservation.

(Micmac language)

Harp seal metauh

18/02/2025

Andre’s Sea folk
Seals, sealions, and kin, who were a source of subsistence to indigenous peoples.

Harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus)
(Pagophilus) genus

(Harp seals give birth after 11.5 months and pups weigh about 25 lbs when they are born, ©Vladimir Melnik/Shutterstock.com)

by Dennis J. Vieira: Author & Editor of Walk Around Turtle Island

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18/02/2025

Seals first appeared after the Oligocene

The oceans became cooler resulting in an abundance of food which resulted in mammals being drawn to them as the Oligocene period drew to an end. Though it it wasn’t until 12 million years later that the ancestor of the pinnipeds emerged on the scene. The first ancestral mammal known as (Puijila darwini (discovered by Natalia Rybczynski), lived in the Arctic Circle. This creature in preferred freshwater to saltwater unlike its descendants which are also capable of handling the latter.

While the earliest pinniped somewhat resembled a seal, although it had the body of an otter and four stout limbs with which it walked and swam. It also as well had webbed toes and was a skilled swimmer. However, though it lacked the adroitness of its descendants in the water.

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Introduction

(Grey Seals Male)

True earless seal (Phocidae) family are also commonly referred to as "true seals" or "earless seals", as they do not have external ear flaps .All true seals in having a smooth and thick layer of blubber which lies underneath the skin and are-able to divert blood-flow to this layer to help control their temperature. With their fore-flippers are in used primarily for steering, while their hind flippers are bound to the pelvis in such a way that they cannot bring them under their body to walk on them.

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Phocids in swimming by sideways movements of their bodies, using their hind-flippers to their fullest effect. Although their streamlined bodies in allow true seals to swim more effectively over long distances, they are however, very clumsy on land having to wriggle in a “caterpillar”-like motion with their front flippers and abdominal muscles. As evidence of this their tracks on sandy beaches are very easy to identify due to this undulating motion with a long groove or sled mark in the center and front flipper tracks on either side.

True seals in often seen sunning themselves on haul out beaches As well they sometimes will curl up into a U-shape with their tails and heads lifted to cool off. While Phocid respiratory and circulatory systems are in adapted to allow diving to considerable depths, and they can spend a long time underwater between breaths. Air in forced from the lungs during a dive and into the upper respiratory passages, where gases cannot easily be absorbed into the bloodstream. This thus helps protect the seal from the bends. Their middle ear is also in lined with blood sinuses that inflate during diving, helping to maintain a constant pressure.

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(Harp seals are believed to be closely related to ribbon seals and gray seals©Dolores M. Harvey/Shutterstock.com)

As well true seals do not communicate by “barking” like eared seals
(otariids), instead, they communicate by slapping the water and grunting. As this one of things in to distinguish them from fur seals, sea lions, and walruses. The Harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus in identified as a Phocids member by the characteristic torpedo-shaped body and the presence of short front flippers, long hind flippers, large claws, short fur, and the lack of external ear flaps. They in also having a long, tapered snout and a flat but wide head.

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Though the harp seal is the only living member of its genus, with its closest living relatives are in probably the ribbon seal and the grey seal. There in two recognized subspecies the (Pagophilus groenlandicus groenlandicus) found in the North Atlantic from Eastern Canada to Norway, and (Pagophilus groenlandicus oceanicus), found in the White and Barents seas. While in fact they don’t interbreed at all due to their vast geographical distances, there are also no real anatomical or morphological differences between them.

Harp seal the most abundant pinniped

In the northern hemisphere, harp seals are the most abundant, of all the pinnipeds (i.e. walruses, seals, fur seals and sea lions)

Harp seal is migratory

There are three main populations of harp seals, each of which has its own migratory route, with harp seals in may travel up 3000 miles in a year. The migratory patterns of this seal in depending on where the seal population breeds and molts. For harp seals breed (February to April) on the southern edge of their range in the winter and molt (April to May) nearby in the spring. After molting, harp seals in then migrate to the northern end of their range for the summer. While harp seals then begin their journey back to their breeding grounds in September.

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Generally, in September, all three of the groups begin to travel south again toward their breeding grounds. They will in then arrive in their respective breeding grounds in January or February. Though some of the juvenile and non-breeding harp seals may remain in the northern feeding areas year-round. Specifically, the northwest Atlantic population, which breeds and molts in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Labrador, and Newfoundland, travels to Hudson Bay, off the coast of Baffin Island, northwestern Greenland and northern Labrador to feed in early summer.

While the group that breeds in Jan Mayen spends its summers between Svalbard and Greenland. Additionally, the population, which is essentially its own subspecies, which breeds in the White Sea just off the coast of Russia, in travels north to the Cara and Barents Seas for the summer to the north.

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Harp seal like other seals can bend almost completely backwards

(Pagophilus groenlandicus skeleton)

As all seals have extremely flexible bodies, the harp seal can almost fold the upper half of its body completely backwards. However, the harp seal’s hind feet in extend directly behind the body and are unable to rotate forward. So in order to move on the land, it crawls or scoots forward on its belly. While as poor and cumbersome as it is on land, however, the harp seal is an excellent swimmer in the water.

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Harp seal senses are specially adapted

(About 7.6 million harp seals are believed to exist, ©iStock.com/Valery Kudryavtsev)

Harp seals generally have acute vision and hearing, which is incredibly strong underwater, but a very poor sense of smell. As the harp seal's eyes are large for its body size and contain a large spherical lens that improves focusing ability. Its mobile pupil helps it also adapt to the intense glare of the Arctic ice. With its retina is rod-dominated and backed by a cat-like and reflective tapetum lucidum, enhancing its low light sensitivity. As well its cones are most sensitive to blue-green spectra, while its rods help sense light intensity and may provide some color discrimination.

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While its cornea is lubricated by lacrimal glands, to protect the eye from sea water damage. With the lack of tear ducts to drain secretions to the nasal passages contribute to the harp seals "eye rings" on land. This in can be an indication of the hydration level of the seal. Additionally, its whiskers, called vibrissae, lie in horizontal rows on either side of its snout. They in providing a touch sense with labeled line coding, and underwater, also respond to low-frequency vibrations,
such as movement.

When on ice, the mother identifies her offspring by smell. This sense may in also warn of an approaching predator. Though underwater, the seal closes its nostrils, thus in disabling its sense of smell.

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Harp seal fur plays role in thermoregulation

(White coated pup)

Harp seals boast a wide range of pelages through their development, thus their insulation changes over the course of a seal's lifetime. As young harp seals rely on a lanugo pelt from nursing all the way up to their weaning age. With the insulating quality of this fur in depends on its ability to keep a layer of air trapped inside or between the hairs. It in taking a year for their blubber to develop and for their first-year pelage to grow. As this transition from thick lanugo fur to blubber is important because lanugo fur does not insulate well in water.

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