Hooded seal

(Cystophora cristata )

The (Cystophora cristata ) and hooded seal is an arctic seal, which is named after the cap -like bulge on the forehead and nose of the male.

Features

The cap -like top is actually an overgrowth of the nose. Instead of the elephant seals hang down like a trunk, this remarkable structure is located on the front of the male. The " cap " is beginning to develop in the fourth year of life. It is divided into two parts along the nasal septum. The male can inflate this cap, so that the size of his head by twice seems to increase. This means sets the male one during the mating season and as a threatening gesture.

The male of the hinged cap is about eight feet long and weighs 300 kg. Females are smaller: They measure about 2 m and 200 kg. The color is silvery; the body is covered with dark, irregular patches. The head is much darker than the rest of the body and unspotted.

Habitat

The hooded lives north of Canada, Greenland and Europe in the Arctic seas. The range extends from Baffin over Newfoundland and Iceland to Spitsbergen. Stray individual animals have also been found on the coasts of Great Britain, Portugal and Germany. Hooded seals live on the floating ice over deep water layers. They steer clear of the coasts and the sea ice and bring the boys on floating ice floes to the world, if such are available with adequate size and strength.

Way of life

Hooded seals are solitary seals, which do not form colonies. To take place in March but several females to loose groups, the individual animals are each at least 50 m apart. When a female rearing a young one, it is for this time in the company of a male, which occurs very aggressive towards other dogs. To the right, to protect the female, there may be clashes between hooded male. Then you blow their " caps " on and try to bite each other. The interest of the male is not only in protecting the boys but also in the protection of the right to mate after weaning the baby animal with the females. Strong males can guard within several females.

The juveniles have a bluish fur, they were formerly known by the seal hunters as " Blue Men". They are suckled for about four to six days of the mother, which is the shortest lactation in all mammals.

Then the females leave their young in order to mate with the males waiting in the water. The young remain for several weeks alone on the ice, losing at this time considerably in weight and eventually go into the water to hunt actively. Hooded seals eat fish and squid.

Others

Because of the trans- old animals and the blue fur of the young hooded seals were slaughtered en masse in the 19th and 20th centuries. Came late as the 1970s, almost 100,000 annually hooded furs in trade. After the United States in 1972 and the states of Europe in the 1980s prohibited the import of seal skins, demand dropped significantly, stocks have since recovered. Today, still an estimated 5,000 hooded seals killed, the species is not threatened. The global population was estimated in 1993 at 500,000 to 600,000 animals.

Because of the rampant enlargement of the male nose has often assumed a relationship of folding cap with the elephant seals. Both genera were grouped under the name " trunk seal ". Today we consider this development for an example of convergent evolution and no longer considers them to be related.