Seal habitats. Baikal seal How much does a seal weigh

Average length the body of an adult seal is 165 cm (from the end of the nose to the end of the hind flippers). Weight from 50 to 130 kg, females are larger than males. Linear growth ends in seals by the age of 17-19, and weight growth continues for a number of years and is possible until the end of life. They live up to 55 years.

In a calm environment, the speed of movement under water does not exceed 7-8 km/h. Maximum speed 20−25 km/h. But she swims at such speed when she moves away from danger. On a hard substrate, the seal moves quite slowly, moving with its flippers and tail. In case of danger, he goes to horse races.

According to fishermen, seals have been caught in nets at depths of up to 200 m, but, as a rule, they dive to much shallower depths. The seal finds food in a well-lit area (25-30 m) and apparently does not need to dive deep. Nerpa is capable of diving up to 400 m and can withstand pressure of 21 atm. Under experimental conditions (in a large aquarium), when it was kept under water, the seal remained there for up to 65 minutes. (record duration). In nature, it stays under water for up to 20-25 minutes. - this is enough for her to get food or escape from danger.

Area

Evolution

Baikal seal modern classification belongs to the family of true seals (Phocidae), genus Pusa. Researchers (in particular, K.K. Chapsky, a widely known expert on pinnipeds in Russia and abroad) believe that the Baikal seal originated from something common with the northern ringed seal ancestor Moreover, the ancestral forms of these two species are later than the Caspian seal.

Lifestyle

Nutrition

The seal feeds on non-commercial fish (golomyanka, Baikal goby). Under experimental conditions (in an aquarium), the seal's daily diet ranged from 3 to 5 kg of fish. An adult seal eats up to 1 ton of fish per year. The main food of the seal is golomyanka-goby fish. Omul falls into the seal's food by accident and in very small quantity, no more than 1−2% of the daily diet.

Reproduction

By 3-4 years of life, seals become sexually mature. Pregnancy lasts 11 months, of which the first 3-5 lasts during embryonic diapause.

Young animals

The seal gives birth to its cubs in a specially prepared snow lair. Most seals are born in mid-March. Usually the seal gives birth to one, rarely two cubs. The weight of a newborn is up to 4 kg. The skin of the cubs is silver or silver-gray. The cub spends about 4-6 weeks exclusively inside the den, feeding on mother's milk. By the time the lair collapses, it will have shed almost completely. The mother takes care of the baby, leaving only for the duration of the hunt. In her presence, the temperature inside the lair reaches +5 °C, while outside there are frosts of −15...-20 °C.

Wintering

On the ice in lairs under the snow, often in hummocky areas of Lake Baikal.

When the lake is covered with ice, the seal can only breathe through vents - spare holes in the ice. The seal takes a breather by raking the ice from below with the claws of its forelimbs. Around its lair there are up to a dozen or more auxiliary vents, which can be tens or even hundreds of meters away from the main one. Vents are usually round in shape. The size of the auxiliary vents is 10-15 cm (enough to stick your nose above the surface of the water), and the main vent is up to 40-50 cm. From below, the vents have the shape of an overturned funnel - they expand significantly downwards. Interestingly, the ability to make perfume is innate instinct. In the experimental aquarium, for the seal to rest on the water surface, a small floating platform made of 5-centimeter foam plastic was installed, and the rest of the aquarium was covered with open water. Young seals, one month and two months old, made holes in the foam, raking it with their claws from below, stuck out their noses and breathed into the vents, although there was open water nearby. Having become “saturated” with air, they went under the water again. It should be noted that the seals were caught at a week or two weeks of age, when they were still feeding on their mother’s milk. I had to feed them with condensed milk through a nipple from a bottle, like children. They had not yet swum in water and were afraid of water. And when they grew up, they showed what they were capable of.

Dream

According to observations, the seal sleeps in water, as it is in an immobilized state for quite a long time, probably as long as there is enough oxygen in the blood. While the seal was sleeping, scuba divers swam close to it, touched it and even turned it over, but the animal continued to sleep.

Ecology

Nerpa - the top in food chain in the Baikal ecosystem. The only source of danger is man.

The appearance of seals in Baikal

Until now, there is no consensus among scientists on how this animal got to Baikal. Most researchers adhere to the point of view of I.D. Chersky that the seal entered Baikal from the Arctic Ocean through the Yenisei-Angara river system during the Ice Age, simultaneously with the Baikal omul. Other scientists do not exclude the possibility of its penetration along the Lena, into which it is assumed that there was a flow from Lake Baikal.

The first description of the seal (Baikal Seal)

It is mentioned in the reports of the first explorers who came here in the first half of the 17th century. A scientific description was first made during the work of the 2nd Kamchatka, or Great Northern, expedition led by V. Bering. As part of this expedition, a detachment worked on Baikal under the leadership of I. G. Gmelin, who comprehensively studied the nature of the lake and its surroundings and described the seal.

Did the seal live in the Bauntovsky lakes?

According to the legend of local residents, seals quite recently (one or two centuries ago) were found in the Bauntovsky lakes (Bauntovsky lakes are connected with the Vitim River basin). It is believed that the seal got there along Lena and Vitim. Some naturalists believe that the seal came to the Bauntovsky lakes from Baikal and that these lakes were supposedly connected with it. However, reliable data confirming one version or another has not yet been received.

Seal population

According to the records of employees of the Limnological Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, there are currently about 100 thousand heads. Counting is being done in different ways. The fastest, but less reliable, is visually from an airplane that flies along a certain route network. The census takers look out the window and mark each lair they see, or they take aerial photographs of the routes and use them to count the lairs. And then they are recalculated from a unit area to the entire water area of ​​the lake. The second method is to lay out about 100 survey sites across Lake Baikal, each 1.5×1.5 km long. They go around them on a motorcycle or walk around them on the ice and count all the lairs that are found on the sites. Then a recalculation is carried out for the entire water area of ​​the lake. And finally, the route method. On two or three motorcycles, a group of surveyors makes routes across Lake Baikal at a certain distance from each other, sufficient to see from the motorcycle all the lairs they encounter. IN recent years The most accurate (maximum statistical error of 10%) - area - counting of seals is used. The highest age of seals in Baikal, determined by V.D. Pastukhov, an employee of the Limnological Institute, is 56 years for females and 52 years for males. At the age of 3 - 6 years it is capable of mating, producing offspring at the age of 4 - 7 years. Males reach sexual maturity a year or two later. Pregnancy in seals lasts 11 months. It begins with embryonic diapause - a delay in the development of the embryo in the female womb for 3 - 3.5 months. During her life, a female can probably bring up to two dozen or more cubs, considering that she is capable of bearing offspring until she is 40 years old. Females usually give birth annually. However, every year up to 10 - 20% of females remain barren for various reasons. This period extends over more than a month - from the end of February to the beginning of April. Most seals appear in mid-March. They are born on ice, in a snowy lair. During the first period, while they are feeding on their mother’s milk, they do not dive into the water, but prefer to lie down in the den.

Fishing

The basis of the Baikal seal fishery is its valuable fur. Fat, meat and internal organs animals are used limitedly by the local population. Options are being considered rational use Baikal seal in the food industry

St. John's wort is hunted mainly for cubs after the first molt.

The seal is an amazing animal that lives in extreme conditions. In addition, the seal helped the peoples of northern Russia to survive in difficult conditions. This statement is indisputable, since only seal hunting and various types pinnipeds allowed them to survive in difficult conditions.

What kind of mammal is this that saved the Yakuts, Buryats and several other small nations living in the northern regions from extinction? Russian Federation?

Nerpa - description of the beast, photos and videos

This most amazing mammal has a spindle-shaped body that smoothly passes into the head. The limbs of the seal are flippers, with the front flippers equipped with powerful claws and impressive muscles. It is the forelimbs that help her make a hole in the ice in order to breathe air or rest on the ice or stones after hunting or escaping from a predator.

In addition, this mammal has a significant layer of subcutaneous fat, the thickness of which can vary from 2 to 14 cm.

Scientists distinguish three types of this type of seal: Baikal, Caspian and ringed seals. It was the fat, skin and meat of these animals that allowed several small nationalities of our Motherland to survive.

Using animal fat and meat for food, heating and lighting their homes, and skins to make clothing, boats and the homes themselves, thousands, and possibly millions of people, were able to withstand the harshest living conditions.

The habitat of this unique mammal is quite extensive and affects both the regions of the far north of the Russian Federation and in lakes northern regions our Motherland. In addition, these animals are also found in the Caspian Sea. This type of seal, living in Lake Baikal and the Caspian Sea, is considered the most interesting for scientific study, as many scientists consider them to be witnesses to the initial spread of seals across the lakes after the end of the Ice Age.

Since this type Since the seal family, like its closest relatives, is a predator, the basis of the animal’s diet is fish. In addition, in the event of an unsuccessful hunt, these mammals will not refuse various types of crustaceans and zooplankton.

At the same time, the seal does not give preference to any particular type of fish, but hunts any fish that is common in its habitat. However, besides humans, they also have natural enemies, which significantly affect the seal population. Natural enemies include: sea ​​lions, killer whales, walruses, arctic foxes and other sea and land animals.

Despite the colonization of the regions of the far north of Russia and the disruption of the way of life that has occurred, the commercial harvest of seals pursues almost the same goals as several hundred years ago. Fat, which has some medical properties, is used for various diseases associated with hypothermia of the body (frostbite), and meat - with a lack of vitamin C (scurvy).

However, the main reasons industrial production, animal skins remain. Due to the presence of dense thick fur and the high strength of the skin itself, clothing and hats made from the skin of this animal are highly popular not only among residents of the far north, but also among residents of more southern regions.

Considering the above, we can confidently say that if the seal, as a species, had died in the process of evolution, it would have become much poorer.

Let's watch the video - a seal communicates with a girl:

The seal lives in water. The seal does not have gills. The question is, how does a seal breathe under ice in winter?

As a child, I thought that seals swim away to warm seas for the winter. Then I found out that all winter they maintain vent holes through which they come up to breathe. The Chukchi and Eskimos (always before, now very rarely) went to sea with specially trained dogs to look for these same holes-vents for hunting seals.

2.

It is extremely difficult to see such a hole, despite the fact that the hole itself is 50 cm in diameter or more. A snow-ice dome rises above the hole, which reliably hides the exit from animals and from frost and snow. There are also seals in the Anadyr Estuary. But I only found out that my dog ​​Loki turned out to be a moon dog this Sunday, when I went skiing to Tolsty Cape. The dog found four opening holes while we reached the cape. The hole is so well camouflaged that you can walk nearby, or even not notice it. What gives away the seal's lair is the smell that oozes through a small hole in the "dome" above the hole. But the smell in the hole is not at all fresh cucumbers, like near the holes of Anadyr fishermen.

3. Dome on the hole

4. Found the hole!

5. In some vents, seals arrange birthing beds. They dig entire labyrinths of tunnels under the snow.

6. Inside the hole

7.

8. Literally a few meters from the hole there is a snowmobile track

Baikal is the deepest and most uniquely beautiful lake in the world. It is there that you can meet unique animals that are not found anywhere else - Baikal animals, endemics, relics of the tertiary fauna.

Baikal seal belongs to the seal family and forms a separate species. This is the only mammal on Lake Baikal. This wonderful animal was first heard and described during the Bering expedition.

The team included various scientists, including those who were directly involved in studying the nature of the Baikal region. It was from them that the first detailed seal descriptions.

The pinniped is a rather unique phenomenon on Lake Baikal. After all, it is common to think that seals are indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic and Antarctic. How did it happen that these animals ended up in Eastern Siberia still remains a mystery to everyone.

Pictured is a Baikal seal

But the fact remains a fact, and this phenomenon makes Lake Baikal even more mysterious and unusual. On photo of the Baikal seal you can watch endlessly. Her impressive size and some kind of childish expression on her face seem slightly incompatible.

Features and habitat of the Baikal seal

This is a fairly large animal, almost human height 1.65 cm, and weighing from 50 to 130 kg. The animal is covered everywhere with thick and tough hair. It is not there only in the eyes and nostrils. It is even found on the animal's flippers. Seal fur mostly gray or gray-brown in color with a beautiful silver tint. Most often, the lower part of her body is lighter than the upper part.

seal animal swims without problems thanks to the membranes on her fingers. Strong claws are clearly visible on the front paws. They are slightly smaller on the hind legs. The seal has practically no neck.

Females are always slightly larger than males. The eyes of the seal have a third eyelid. After being in the air for a long time, her eyes begin to water involuntarily. There is simply a huge amount of fat deposits in the animal’s body.

The seal's fat layer is about 10-15 cm. The least amount of fat is in the area of ​​the head and front paws. Fat helps the animal not to freeze in cold water. Also, with the help of this fat, it is easy for the seal to survive difficult periods of lack of food. Subcutaneous Baikal seal fat helps her long time lie on the surface of the water.

The Baikal seal sleeps very soundly

She can even sleep in this position. Their sleep is enviably very sound. There have been cases when scuba divers turned over these sleeping animals, and they did not even wake up Baikal seal nerpa lives exclusively on Lake Baikal.

There are, however, exceptions and seals end up in the Angara. IN winter time During the year, they spend almost all their time in the underwater kingdom of the lake and only in rare cases can they appear on its surface.

In order to have enough oxygen under water, seals use their sharp claws to make small holes in the ice. The usual dimensions of such holes are from 40 to 50 cm. The deeper the funnel, the wider it is.

Baikal seal underwater

The end of the winter period for this pinniped animal is characterized by its emergence onto the ice. In the first month of summer, there is a huge concentration of these animals in the area of ​​the shores of the Ushkany Islands.

This is where the real seal rookery is located. As soon as the sun sets in the sky, these animals begin to move together towards the islands. After the ice floes disappear from the lake, the seals try to stay close to coastal zone.

Character and lifestyle of the Baikal seal

An interesting thing about the seal is that while it is under water, its nostrils and holes in its ears are closed with a special valve. When the animal surfaces and exhales air, pressure occurs and the valves open.

The animal has excellent hearing, perfect vision and an excellent sense of smell. The speed of movement of seals in water reaches approximately 25 km/h. After the ice breaks up on Lake Baikal, which occurs in March-May, the seal begins to molt. At this time, the animal is starving and does not need water. The seal does not eat anything at this time; it has enough fat reserves to survive.

This is a very energetic, curious, but at the same time cautious animal. It can watch a person from the water for a long time, immersing itself completely in it and leaving only its head on the surface. As soon as the seal realizes that it has been spotted from its observation post, it immediately, without the slightest splash or unnecessary noise, quietly plunges under the water.

This animal is easy to train. They literally become the crowd's favorites. There is more than one Baikal seal show, which is visited with great pleasure by both adults and children.

Baikal seals participants in the show

The Baikal seal has no enemies except people. In the last century, people hunted seals very intensively. These were colossal industrial scale. Literally everything that this animal consists of has been used. Special lamps in mines were fueled with seal fat, the meat was eaten, and the skin was especially valued by taiga hunters.

It was used to make high-quality and fast skis. These skis differed from ordinary skis in that they could never go backwards on any steep slope. It got to the point where the animal became smaller and smaller. Therefore, in 1980, a unanimous decision was made to save him, and Baikal seal was entered into The Red Book.

In the photo there is a baby Baikal seal

Diet of the Baikal seal

The favorite food of seals is golomyanka and Baikal gobies. In a year, this animal can eat more than a ton of such food. Rarely, omul may be included in their diet. This fish accounts for 1-2% daily food animal. There are groundless rumors that seals are destroying entire populations of Baikal omul. Actually this is not true. It is also found in seals' food, but extremely rarely.

Reproduction and life expectancy of the Baikal seal

The end of the winter period is associated with the reproductive process in the Baikal seal. Their puberty occurs at the age of four. The female's pregnancy lasts 11 months. She crawls onto the ice to give birth to babies. It is during this period that the seal is most at risk from hunters and poachers.

Baikal seal cubs are born white, which is why they are often called “squirrels”

In order to somehow protect ourselves from these potential enemies and from the cruel spring weather conditions seals build special dens. This dwelling is connected to water so that the female can defend herself at any moment and protect her offspring from possible danger.

Somewhere in mid-March, baby Baikal seals are born. Most often the female has one, rarely two and even less often three. The small one weighs about 4 kg. For approximately 3-4 months, the baby feeds on mother's milk.

He is dressed in a beautiful snow-white fur coat, thanks to which they are perfectly camouflaged in the snowdrifts. Some time passes and after molting, the babies acquire their natural gray shade of fur with silver, characteristic of their species. Fathers do not take any part in their upbringing.

The growth of the seal takes a very long time. They grow up to 20 years. It happens that some individuals, not growing to their normal sizes, die. After all average duration The lifespan of the Baikal seal is about 8-9 years.

Although scientists have noticed that this animal can live a long time - up to 60 years. But for many reasons and due to some external factors There are very few such long-lived seals among seals, one might say only a few. Most of all these animals are seals of the young generation at the age of 5 years. The age of seals can be easily determined by their fangs and claws.

Seals are a genus from the seal family. Sometimes seals are included in the genus of common seals. There are 3 species in the seal genus.

The ringed seal is found in temperate and cold waters of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and in the Arctic Ocean; in Russia lives in all northern seas, and also in the Bering and Okhotsk seas. The Caspian seal, or Caspian seal, lives in the Caspian Sea. The Baikal seal, or Baikal seal, inhabits Lake Baikal.

The uniqueness of the Baikal seal lies in the fact that it is the only mammal that lives on Lake Baikal. Belongs to the seal family. Enough large mammal, body length reaches up to 140 cm, and weight reaches a full 90 kg. Males are always larger and heavier than females. Even a newborn baby is particularly heavy; at birth it weighs about 3 kilograms.

Appearance and behavior characteristics

The color is quite uniform, light gray along the back, transitioning to yellow closer to the belly. This coloring, dull at first glance, perfectly camouflages the seal. In nature she does not have natural enemies, the only one who hunts her is a man.

The seal skin is considered the warmest and most practical, which is why fishermen catch this animal. The indigenous inhabitants of Transbaikalia gladly use the meat of hunted seals for food.

The seal has very powerful paws topped with strong nails, which allows it to winter period tear apart a thin part of the ice in order to breathe oxygen. Constantly being under water at dusk has formed a certain structure of the eyes; they are quite convex, which allows the seal to easily obtain food for itself. The seal can stay under water for up to an hour, holding its breath for this period; it is an amazing swimmer, thanks to the increased concentration of hemoglobin, it can dive up to 300 meters in depth.

Her natural environment habitats - water depths, despite its impressive dimensions, it is very maneuverable and dexterous in the water; under water it can reach speeds of up to 25 km/h. But, like all seals, they are completely clumsy on land; in moments of danger, while on the shore, they can start racing, which looks quite funny.

Nutrition

The seal's favorite food is the small and large golomyanka, the long-winged goby, the yellow-winged goby, and the sand broadhead. Golomyankas occupy the main stage in seal nutrition. A seal eats from 3 to 5 kg of fish per day. And it takes 2-3 hours to digest food in the stomach.

Reproduction

After 4 years of life, females are ready to mate and reproduce, but males lag behind a little and mature a couple of years later. Mating season for seals it lasts from the end of March to the end of April. At this time, the males make every effort to invite the female onto the ice to mate. And if successful, after 11 months a small seal pup will be born. A natural feature is that pregnancy is delayed by 2-3 months, that is, the fertilized egg may be in the freezing stage, and only after this period the female’s pregnancy will begin to develop.

It is the female who takes care of the future birthplace for her cubs, usually a den in the snow, since the cubs appear in winter. After the baby is born, the seal mother will feed him milk for 3 months. Seal babies are born completely dependent on their mother, their skin is colored white. During the feeding period, the mother will only go fishing for her food; the rest of the time the female spends with the babies. When she is in the lair, the temperature there rises to +5, although outside it the temperature can drop to -15.

The ringed seal is named after the light rings with a dark frame that make up the pattern of its fur. Adults reach a size of 135 cm and a weight of 70 kg.

Dimensions and appearance

The ringed seal is one of the smallest. The body length of an adult seal is up to 150 cm, total mass usually does not exceed 50-60 kg. The body is relatively short and thick. The neck is short, the head is small, the muzzle is shortened. Vibrissae flattened with wavy edges. The hair of adult animals, like that of other species, is short, hard, with a predominance of awns.

The coloration of adults varies widely. Characterized by the presence large quantity light rings scattered throughout the body. The general background color of the dorsal side of the body is dark, sometimes almost black, while the ventral side is light, yellowish. There are no light rings on the flippers. Males and females are colored the same.

Habitat

The ringed seal is an inhabitant of the Arctic and subarctic waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, where it is found everywhere. Lives mainly in coastal shallow areas. Also inhabits the Baltic Sea, lakes Ladoga and Saimaa.

In Russia, the seal is distributed from the Murmansk coast to the Bering Strait, including the White Sea, the waters of Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land, Severnaya Zemlya, New Siberian Islands. On Far East The ringed seal is called an akiba. In the Bering Sea, it lives along the western (where it descends to the south almost to Cape Lopatka in Kamchatka) and eastern (to Bristol Bay) coasts, including the waters of the Commander and Aleutian Islands. In the Sea of ​​Okhotsk it inhabits the entire coastal part, including numerous bays, as well as the coast of Eastern Sakhalin, Sakhalin Bay and the Tatar Strait. Reaches the shores of Hokkaido.

Outside our waters, the ringed seal lives off the coast of Northern Norway, Spitsbergen, the eastern (up to 75 degrees N) and western coasts of Greenland, in the northern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the island of Newfoundland. Inhabits almost the entire Canadian Arctic Archipelago, including Hudson Bay.

Migration in ringed seals is weakly expressed. Obviously, it goes farthest to the north. She spends most of the year in ice-covered bays and fiords. In autumn, as the water freezes, the animal does not migrate south, but makes holes in the ice, to which it regularly swims up to breathe and rest. Usually the seal spends 8-9 minutes under water, but if necessary, it may not rise to the surface for up to 20 minutes. It only takes 45 seconds for a seal to stock up on a new portion of air.

Reproduction

In Okhotsk and Chukotka, in Bely and Barents Seas females give birth between mid-March and mid-April, in the Baltic Sea and in Lake Ladoga- mostly in early March.

The cubs are born in a long, thick plumage, which is replaced, apparently, after 2 weeks. The length of a newborn is about 60 cm, weight up to 4 kg. Milk feeding lasts about one month. During this time, the cubs' body length increases by approximately 10 cm, and their weight doubles. Then the growth rate slows down. By winter, the body weight of young seals reaches 12 kg, and their length is 80 cm or more. One-year-old seals have a body length of up to 84 cm and a weight of up to 14 kg.

The ringed seal is the only seal that builds a nest for its young. In March or April, when the ice begins to break, the female makes a hole in a snowdrift with a tunnel leading to water.

Females give birth to one baby squirrel. Characteristic distinctive feature This species is that in many cases, cubs that have lost their mother do not die, but survive, but their growth is greatly slowed down, and as a result they remain dwarfs.

Female ringed seals reach sexual maturity in most cases at the age of 5-6 years, and give birth to their first offspring at the age of 6-7 years. Males begin breeding mainly at the age of 6-7 years. In ringed seals, growth stops at the age of 10 years.

The ringed seal's diet consists of two groups of animals - fish and crustaceans, and only those of them that form large aggregations in upper layers water.

Appearance

The body length of the Caspian seal is up to 150 cm, weight on average 70 kg. The body, although short in length, is relatively thick. The neck is not long, but noticeable, the head is small. The edges of the flattened vibrissae are wavy.

The coloring of this seal is different in animals of different ages and different sexes. Characterized by large individual variations in color. Basically, the upper surface of the body has a darkish background, the abdominal surface is light gray. On the sides the transition of tones is gradual. Dark gray, brownish, sometimes almost black spots of various sizes and shapes are randomly scattered throughout the body. On the back the spotting is more pronounced than on the belly. Males are colored more brightly and contrastingly than females.

Habitat

The Caspian seal lives only in the Caspian Sea, where it is found everywhere from the Northern Caspian Sea to the coast of Iran. The northern half of the sea is generally more populated than the southern half.

The Caspian seal makes regular seasonal, although not long, migrations. IN winter months Almost the entire population is concentrated in the ice zone of the Northern Caspian Sea. As the ice disappears, the animals move south and by the beginning of summer they are widely distributed throughout the waters of the Middle and Southern Caspian Sea. Here they feed heavily, and in early autumn they begin to move again to the Northern Caspian Sea.

Nutrition

The Caspian seal's diet consists of various types of gobies. The second place in nutrition is occupied by sprat. In even smaller quantities, these seals eat silversides, shrimp, and amphipods. Of valuable commercial fish Herring is sometimes found in their stomachs, which they eat in small quantities at certain periods of the year. The composition of food changes little throughout the year.

Reproduction

The pup period of the Caspian seal is shorter than that of other species - from the middle of the last ten days of January to the end of the first ten days of February. The majority of females give birth to offspring during this period. Mating begins after the puppy and lasts from mid-February to early March. Reproduction and mating occur on the ice of the Northern Caspian Sea.

The female, as a rule, brings one large cub up to 75 cm long, weighing 3-4 kg. It is covered with long, silky, almost white hair. Duration dairy nutrition about 1 month, and during this period the length of the cub increases to 85-90 cm, and body weight - more than 4 times.

During the second and third decades of February, still during the lactation period, the cubs molt, replacing the baby's white hair. Molting cubs are called sheepskin coats, and young animals that have completely replaced their baby hair are called sivars. The short hair of the sivar has an almost uniform dark gray color on the back and a light gray (whitish) uniform color on the belly. As the animal grows with each annual molt, the spotted color appears more and more brightly.

Females apparently reach sexual maturity at 5 years of age, so most females give birth to their first offspring at the age of 6 years. After this, most mature females breed annually.

Seals do not form large and dense aggregations on the ice. Females with cubs are usually located at some distance from one another. They pup preferably on solid ice floes, in which holes (holes) are made even when the ice is thin. These holes do not freeze due to the animals’ constant use of them to get out onto the ice. Sometimes seals are forced to widen their holes with the help of sharp claws on their front flippers.

During molting, which occurs after the period of reproduction and mating, when the ice area decreases, Caspian seals form relatively dense aggregations. Animals that have not had time to moult on the ice sometimes (in April) lie down in groups on shalygs (sandy islands) in the northern part of the Caspian Sea.

IN summer months Caspian seals stay on open water scattered throughout the large water area of ​​the Middle and Southern Caspian Sea, and in the fall (September-October) they gather in the northeastern part of the sea, where they lie in dense groups (males and females of different ages) on shalygas.