Portrait de phoque de Weddell Hydrurga Rocks Péninsule Antarctique | HYDRURGA ROCKS, Antarctique — Un phoque de Weddell (Leptonychotes weddellii) repose sur des rochers de granit à Hydrurga Rocks, au large de l'île Two Hummock dans l'archipel Palmer. Son pelage tacheté et rayé le marque comme un animal mature ; les phoques de Weddell grattent des trous de respiration dans la banquise avec leurs dents, ce qui raccourcit leur durée de vie active dans la nature.

• Contributeur: David Coleman | Have Camera Will Travel
• ID de l’image: DP2BC1
• Taille du fichier: 43,9 MB (1,7 MB Téléchargement compressé)
• Autorisations: Modèle - non | Propriété - non
• Dimensions: 4813 x 3188 px | 40,8 x 27 cm | 16 x 10,6 inches | 300dpi
• Date de la prise de vue: 18 décembre 2013
• Lieu: Hydrurga Rocks, Two Hummock Island, Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica

Informations supplémentaires

A Weddell seal rests on granite rock at Hydrurga Rocks, a cluster of low islets off Two Hummock Island in the Palmer Archipelago, on the Antarctic Peninsula's Gerlache Strait coast. Its speckled, banded coat indicates a mature animal, as Weddell seal pelage patterns become more mottled with age. The species, Leptonychotes weddellii, is known for its ability to maintain year-round breathing holes through thick sea ice by rasping at the edges with its teeth, a behavior that gradually wears down the animal's canines and incisors and can shorten its working lifespan in the wild. Weddell seals are the world's southernmost-breeding mammal, hauling out on fast ice and rocky shorelines such as this one across the Antarctic Peninsula region. Hydrurga Rocks itself is named for a different seal species, the leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx, reflecting a mid-20th-century naming convention applied by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee to several features along this coast. The site is also an active chinstrap penguin breeding ground and a long-running wildlife census location monitored by the Oceanites Antarctic Site Inventory. Photograph by David Coleman.

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