Ringed Seal

From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids

Ringed Seal
Conservation status
Least concern (LR/lc)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Carnivora Family: Phocidae Genus: Pusa Species: P. hispida
Binomial name
Pusa hispida (Schreber, 1775)

The Ringed Seal or Jar Seal (Pusa hispida formerly Phoca hispida) is an earless seal inhabiting the Arctic coasts. Also referred to by the Inuit as the Netsik or nattiq, typical adults are 85 to 160 cm long and 40 to 90 kg. They are quite long-lived seals, up to 35 years. Estimates of its population range around the 5 million mark.

The populations living in different areas have evolved to separate subspecies, which are:

• Pusa hispida hispida: Arctic coasts of Europe, Russia, Canada and Alaska, including Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen, Greenland and Baffin Island.
• Pusa hispida krascheninikovi: North Bering Sea
• Pusa hispida ochotensis: Kamchatka, Okhotsk Sea and southward to 35°N, along the Japanese Pacific coast.
• Pusa hispida botnica Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Finland
• Pusa hispida ladogensis (Ladoga Seal) Lake Ladoga
• Pusa hispida saimensis (Saimaa Ringed Seal, saimaannorppa). Lives only in Lake Saimaa in Finland and is one of the most threatened seals in the world with total population around 250 individuals.

The three last subspecies are isolated from the others, like the closely related Nerpa (Baikal Seal).

[edit] Economic Importance

Examination of Early Paleoeskimo sites in Arctic Canada has demonstrated the deliberate hunting of juvenile and young adult ringed seals, probably in the fall and winter from frozen cracks and leads in the ice (Murray, 2005).

[edit] References

• Murray, M. S. (2005). Prehistoric Use of Ringed Seals: A Zooarchaeological Study from Arctic Canada. Environmental Archaeology 10 (1): 19-38

• Seal Specialist Group (1996). Pusa hispida. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 09 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern

[edit] External links

• Saimaa Ringed Seal 1
• Saimaa Ringed Seal 2
• Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami page on the Ringed Seal

[edit] See also

• Saimaa Ringed Seal
• Nerpa