Monk seal - description, habitat, lifestyle

Seals are distinguished by white skin from birth, with the course of the life cycle and growing up, the skin darkens accordingly. They mean medium-sized individuals, which in general there are quite a lot.

Features

1. Seals are representatives of the Steller family. Otherwise, the individuals under discussion are called real or eared seals. The limbs are flippers, the hind legs are equipped with claws and are located far from the body.
2. According to some reports, eared seals appeared as derivatives of bear-like primitive creatures. And the real ones came from the musty primitives. The last representatives of the species are not endowed with auricles. Their flippers are strong and strong, they allow you to quickly move in the aquatic environment.
3. Eared seals, being on land, wield their flippers very well. They steer their hind limbs and set the course, basically they serve as a balancer and simply drag along the ground.

Description

1. Monks are characterized by some distinctive features. Their head has powerful cheekbones that are clearly visible. Especially the older generation. The nose of the animals is wide and apart, standing out. The processes of the nasal region do not have features to wedge between the bones of the upper jaw and nasal bones. The front section of the nose has several protrusions, between which there is a hole.
2. The palate is an arched area, which is equipped with a corner cut. A distinctive feature of the individuals of the variety under discussion is considered to be a powerful developed lower jaw. Other species cannot boast of such a feature. Before the eyes there are also processes. The hearing aid is medium in size and has a triangle format.
3. The passages in the hearing aid are straightened, do not bend at right angles. The teeth are pressed tightly to each other, they are the same in size characteristics, do not have protrusions. Almost every tooth in a row has several roots. As for the incisors, they are dense, with one root. The back fins are deep, wide, with cutouts. Claws are small, practically do not play a role.
4. The front flippers are distinguished by the presence of a large and long bent finger. All the others are gradually decreasing, the fifth is completely small. The claws are thick, sharp, wide, helping to climb to a hard surface.
5. As for the fur, it is smooth and hard, has a water-repellent oily lubricant at the base. Wool fits snugly to the body. The mustache is smooth and long. The pigmentation of individuals of the presented species is gray, dark, may be brown-black. The abdominal section is highlighted. Monks stretch up to 2.4 m along the body of an individual.

Spread

1. Animals live in the Black Sea, there were a lot of them in these waters until the end of the last century. Individuals prefer to live in flocks rather than singly. Found in the Crimea to the present day, in the southwest. There are also many representatives of the family in the waters of Bulgaria, the climatic conditions there are suitable for them. Reproduction is carried out in Burgas and Kaliakra, the number is constantly increasing.
2. It is very rare to find individuals of this genus in Romania, where they live, preferably one at a time. Some seals are found in Turkey, the rest of the population is dispersed along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Seals of this species like the African and Atlantic coasts. Some individuals to this day live on the island of Samos, which is located in Greece.
3. Also, a small number of goals are found on the island of Montecristo, Italy.Of course, one cannot help but affect the presence of seals in Tunisia and on the island of Madeira. The latest head count has shown that there are about 1,500 heads of these seals. Data is currently unknown. It is also unclear how much is in the Crimea.
4. For example, off the coast of Bulgaria, the considered individuals are protected by law. The sad thing is that the number of such animals does not increase. Near Cape Kaliar, the number of individuals is approximately 30 heads.
5. In the territory of the former USSR, the number of seals began to decline sharply, and then completely disappeared. The main reason for this was the anthropogenic impact. Among other things, several decades ago, people massively exterminated such animals.

Food

1. The diet of these individuals is mainly based on fish. In this case, seals do not give preference to any particular species. Therefore, the animal is content with the catch that he could catch. However, in order to maintain a large body weight, it is best for seals to hunt large fish.
2. Such animals can be very lucky when they come across huge schools of large fish. It often happens that fish schools do not seek to come close to the shore in the quantity necessary for the individuals in question. In this case, seals can chase their prey up the river.
3. For example, if you look closely at the relatives of seals - largam, then such animals with the onset of summer begin to eat fish, which descends into the seas along various river tributaries. After this, individuals try mainly to eat capelin. It is such a fish that most often comes ashore during spawning.
4. Each year, seals also massively prey on salmon and herring. Only in the warm period, the considered individuals can enjoy such fish. In any case, both herring and salmon tend to spawn on the shores. It is worth noting that it is in the cold season that seals are much more difficult.
5. Represented animals have to move away from the coast from time to time. They try to stay close on drifting ice floes. In this case, the basis of nutrition can be mollusks, pollock and octopuses. In any case, if the seal notices another fish, it certainly will not swim past it.

Breeding

1. It is noteworthy that, regardless of the species, these animals reproduce offspring only 1 time per year. Often this happens at the end of the summer season. With the onset of the mating season, the considered individuals begin to form simply giant rookeries.
2. It can be both on the mainland, and on a huge drifting ice floe. Each rookery may have several thousand individuals. In most cases, seals form monogamous pairs. They stay together for the rest of their lives. However, elephant seals adhere to polygamous relationships.
3. As a rule, mating in such animals most often occurs in mid-winter. After this, the females begin to bear cubs for 9-11 months. Then the baby is born immediately weighing about 30 kg. At the same time, the length of his body is about 1 m. For about 3 weeks, the young feed on breast milk.

These individuals previously belonged to walruses, later they were assigned to a separate category. Pinniped creatures are distinguished by their ability to stay in cold water for a long time. Today we examined everything that is connected with them.

Video: monk seal (Monachus monachus)