Caspian seal: description of the animal

The Caspian seal, also called the Caspian seal, used to belong to the pinniped order, but today this status has been changed, and it is ranked among the predatory, a family of true seals. This animal is threatened with extinction for several reasons, but the main one is the pollution of the sea.

Description of the seal

The Caspian seal (a photo of an adult specimen shown below) refers to small species. In adulthood, the length of his body on average is 1.20-1.50 m, and weight 70-90 kg. With a small growth, they are thick enough, and the head is small. Have a mustache. Eyes large, dark in color. Neck though short, but noticeable. The front five-fingered limbs are short, they have strong claws. The coat is very smooth and glossy.

The coloration of these seals depends on their age. But in adults the main tone is dirty straw-white. The back is olive-gray in color and covered with dark irregular irregular spots, the color transition from belly to back is smooth. Although the color can be slightly different shades. Males seem to be more contrast than their companions. Also, they are slightly larger than females and are distinguished by a more massive head with an elongated muzzle.

Where to live

These seals have their name due to their habitat. They live only in the Caspian Sea and settle on the shores, starting from the north of the Caspian Sea and up to Iran itself. Closer to the southern border of the sea, seals are less common.

The Caspian seal regularly performs short seasonal migrations. With the onset of winter, all animals settle on the ice in the Northern Caspian. When the ice begins to melt, the seals gradually advance to the south, and by the beginning of the summer they are populating the territories of the Southern and Middle Caspian. In these places, seals can eat well, in order to accumulate fat reserves by autumn. With the end of summer, the animals again move to the northern part of the sea.

What they eat

The Caspian seal is mainly fed by different types of gobies. Also in the diet can include kilka. Sometimes they can catch shrimp, amphipods, atherin. At certain periods seals eat small amounts of herring. But basically the whole year the seals catch the bull-calves, without changing their diet.

Reproduction and description of a young Caspian seal

This kind of seal differs from the others in that its representatives have the shortest period puppies. It starts at the end of January and ends in early February. During this short time, almost all females have time to bring offspring. At the end of the pups, the seals begin to mate, such a mating season also lasts for a short time, from the middle of February to the first March days, until the animals began to leave the ice of the Northern Caspian.

As a rule, a female seal brings one baby. The calf weighs about 3-4 kg, and its length reaches about 75 cm. Its almost white fur is silky and soft. A calf of the Caspian seal feeds on milk for a month, at which time it can grow up to 90 cm, and its weight increases more than four times. In the middle and in the end of February, while the crumb feeds on milk, he manages to shed and dump the children's white fur. While babies molt, they are called sheepskin coats. After the young seals fully acquire a new fur, they become Sivar. At сиварей color of a fur coat on a back monophonic, dark gray, and from the belly side light gray. Further, the animal moults every year, and with a new hair color, the coloring acquires a more contrasting spotting. At one-year-old age, seals are painted in an ash-gray hue, with a dark back, and on the sides black-gray spots are already noticeable. In young two-year-old seals, the main tone becomes a little lighter, and the number of spots increases.

At the age of five the female of the seal becomes sexually mature and ready for mating. In a year she brings her first-born. Almost all adult females lead offspring from year to year.

Seal behavior

They spend a lot of time in the sea. They can fall asleep, turning on their backs and sticking their muzzles out of the water. This kind of seal does not like to collect large crowds on the ice. A female with her baby is usually away from neighbors. At the beginning of ice formation, an ice floe is selected, on which the puppy will occur. While the ice is thin, the Caspian seal makes a hole through it, through which it will go out into the sea. Due to regular use, the petting lairs do not freeze, and they can be used all winter. But sometimes these holes have to be expanded with the help of strong claws, which are on the front fins.

After the puppy and mating, the moulting period begins. At this time, the ice floe already decreases in size, and the seals become denser. If the seals do not have time to pour out before the ice melts, it must remain in the North of the Caspian Sea, where molting continues on the sandy islet. Usually in April, you can see lying in groups of seals.

In the summer, the Caspian seals are dispersed along the water area and stay apart from each other. Closer to September they gather in the northeastern side of the sea on shalygah (sandy islets). Here, dense clusters are females and males of any age.

Number of Caspian seals

Previously, the number of seals living in the Caspian Sea exceeded one million, but by the 1970s their population had declined sharply, and there were no more than 600,000 animals. Since fur skins are in incredible demand, the Caspian seal suffers from this primarily. The Red Book conferred on the animal the status of a "threatened extinction". This law limits the hunting of mammal and allows the slaughter of seals not more than 50,000 head a year. But it is worth noting that the decline in numbers is due not only to human greed, but also to epidemics and pollution of the Caspian waters.