Crabeater seal

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The Crabeater Seal, Lobodon carcinophagus, is one of the most remarkable, though least known, of the mammals of the world.

At a population of fifteen million, it is perhaps the "second most numerous large species of animal on Earth, after humans."Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything. 285

More than one in every two seals in the world is a Crabeater Seal and the population biomass of Crabeaters is about four times that of all other pinnipeds put together BONNER B 1995 Birds and Mammals - Antarctic Seals. in Antarctica Pergamon Press 202 - 222.

Its unusual multilobed teeth enable this species to sieve krill from the water.

Schematic of the skull, showing the unusual shape of the teeth.

Its dentition looks like a perfect strainer, but how it operates in detail is still unknown. The food of Crabeater Seals consists 98 % of Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba. The seals consume over 63 million tonnes of krill each year. They live and reproduce in the pack ice zone around Antarctica.

Females are up to 200 cm length and 500 lb (230 kg) in weight.

Crabeater Seals colonized Antarctica during the late Miocene or early Pliocene (15 - 25 million years ago), at a time when the region was much warmer than today. The evolution into this strange, successful and abundant animal can be taken as a token of the bounty and continuity of krill.

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