Bearded Seal

The bearded seal is a large true seal with a broad body, small head and conspicuously long white whiskers. Its foreflippers are unusually square and powerful, and the coat is generally grey to brown without the ring patterns of several other ice seals. Adults measure about 2.1–2.7m and may weigh more than 400kg (NOAA Fisheries species account). The streamlined body narrows toward the hind flippers.

Across its range, bearded seals favour shallow Arctic and subarctic shelf seas with moving ice. They feed mainly on the seabed, using sensitive whiskers to locate clams, crabs, shrimp, worms and bottom fish. Females give birth to single pups on drifting ice. Adult males produce elaborate underwater trills during the breeding season, sometimes audible over long distances (NOAA Fisheries species account).