40 Fun Facts About Leopard Seal

In what position does a male leopard seal hang underwater while it sings for hours each day?

Upside down is how a male leopard seal sings, rocking from side to side with its chest puffed out and pulsing with every call.

A leopard seal captured near Sydney was found to have eaten which fully grown Australian mammal?

Platypus was the surprise on the menu, proof that a leopard seal will eat almost anything it meets, from squid and fish to penguins.

A leopard seal grows about as long as which Arctic animal, yet usually weighs less than half as much?

Walrus is the comparison: an adult leopard seal matches its length at 2.4 to 3.5 metres but is built lean and muscular for chasing fast prey.

Which animal is the only natural predator of the leopard seal in its Antarctic home?

Killer whale pods are the one thing a leopard seal has to fear. Otherwise it sits at the very top of the food chain as an apex predator.

A female leopard seal spent four days bringing penguins to Paul Nicklen, a photographer for which magazine?

National Geographic ran his photos of the encounter: she offered him live, then injured, then dead penguins, apparently trying to feed him.

A leopard seal chased Thomas Orde-Lees across the sea ice on which explorer's 1914–1917 Antarctic expedition?

Ernest Shackleton's men were camped on the floes when the animal, about 3.7 metres long, went after Orde-Lees. They called it a sea-leopard.

What was biologist Kirsty Brown doing when a leopard seal made its first recorded fatal attack on a human?

Snorkeling on an underwater survey near Britain's Rothera station in 2003, Brown was dragged under by the animal. Attacks on people are extremely rare.

Antarctic researchers fit special guards because leopard seals keep attacking which kind of craft?

Inflatable boats have black, torpedo-shaped pontoons that leopard seals seem unable to resist biting, so crews armour them against punctures.

In which animated film does a leopard seal chase a young penguin named Mumble?

Happy Feet sends Mumble fleeing from a hungry leopard seal, an escape that lands him among the Adélie penguins who become his friends.

The leopard seal's long, slim body, massive jaws and huge gape give it the look of which animal?

A snake is the comparison wildlife guides draw, thanks to a head that looks too big for the body and a mouth that opens astonishingly wide.

Among the seals of the Antarctic, which is the only species that grows larger than leopard seals do?

Elephant seal, of the southern species, is the only one bigger. A male was once reported to have killed a leopard seal at Heard Island.

The leopard seal's back teeth lock together to sieve which small prey out of the water?

Krill are sucked in and strained through the interlocking molars, so the same mouth that kills penguins also works as a filter.

Like every true seal in the family Phocidae, the leopard seal lacks which external feature?

Ear flaps are missing on every true seal. The leopard seal hears through a small opening in the skin that leads to an internal canal.

Outside the breeding season, how do leopard seals usually spend their days on the Antarctic pack ice?

On their own is the rule: leopard seals are loners, and even adults seen near each other in the pup season show no sign of interacting.

Which leopard seal parent raises the pup on the ice for about its first month?

Only the mother raises the pup, which is born weighing about 30 kg. The male plays no part and goes back to his wandering.

Owha, described as the world's longest-tracked leopard seal, spent a decade around the coast of which country?

New Zealand's Auckland marinas were her favourite haunt. Sightings of her helped get the species reclassified there from a stray visitor to a resident.

A wandering leopard seal once reached subtropical Heron Island, which lies within which natural wonder?

Great Barrier Reef waters are a very long way from the pack ice, which is why leopard seals are counted among the greatest wanderers of the Antarctic seals.

To cope with the pressure of a deep dive, a leopard seal collapses which of its organs?

Its lungs collapse on the way down and re-inflate at the surface, and a reinforced windpipe keeps the airway from being crushed.

With no teeth able to slice its prey, how does a leopard seal tear a penguin into smaller pieces?

Flails it side to side: the leopard seal seizes a swimming penguin, then whips it against the water's surface until it comes apart.

Unusually for a seal, the leopard seal regularly hunts and kills which broad kind of animal?

Warm-blooded animals such as penguins and even other seals are fair game for a leopard seal, the most formidable hunter in its family.

Leopard seals steer with their huge front flippers, a swimming style more like that of which animals?

Sea lions use their front flippers the same way. The leopard seal's are extremely large for a true seal, which makes it very agile in a chase.

The leopard seal's coat is dark on top and pale underneath, a camouflage pattern known by which name?

Countershading is a trick shared with dolphins and herring. On the leopard seal a dark grey back fades to a silver belly scattered with spots.

Which conservation status does the IUCN Red List give the leopard seal, a widespread Antarctic predator?

Least Concern reflects an animal that is abundant across its range and was never hunted on a commercial scale, though shrinking pack ice may put it at risk.

A thick layer of what insulates a leopard seal and also streamlines its body for the chase?

Blubber does double duty, keeping out the cold of freezing water and smoothing the animal's outline. Scientists judge a seal's condition by how thick it is.

In 1985 explorer Gareth Wood's companions drove off a leopard seal by kicking it with what on their boots?

Crampons, the spiked frames worn for grip on ice, saved him: the animal had bitten Wood twice and was trying to drag him into the sea.

A breeding population of leopard seals appears to live year-round in the far south of which South American country?

Chile's Patagonia has resident leopard seals that have been recorded reproducing there, while its neighbours see only the occasional stray.

In 2021 a leopard seal harassed three spearfishermen for half an hour off Simon's Town in which country?

South Africa is a rare stop for the species, yet this one stripped the divers of their fins and spearguns as they swam for shore.

Leopard seals track prey underwater by combining their hearing with which other sensitive body part?

Whiskers work together with the ears to follow prey below the surface, even though a leopard seal's are short and clear.

Which Australian zoo cared for rescued leopard seals named Brooke, Sabine and Casey from 1999 to 2014?

Taronga Zoo in Sydney nursed the stranded animals back to health but never released them, for fear they would carry disease to wild leopard seals.

Starving leopard seals stranded on Australian beaches carried bite marks from which small, oddly named fish?

Cookiecutter shark bites are neat round plugs gouged out of much bigger animals, and the thin, weak strays that reached Australia bore them.

Around the island of South Georgia, which animals are the main prey of the leopard seal?

Fur seals of the Antarctic species top the menu there, and leopard seals have even been watched teaming up to catch their pups.

Young male leopard seals make many varied calls but older males only a few, a pattern shared with which animals?

Birds show the same age shift in their songs. Each mature male leopard seal arranges his few stylised calls into a sequence that is distinctly his own.

In which month are most leopard seal pups born on the Antarctic pack ice, as the southern summer nears?

November is pupping time: the female gives birth to a single pup on the sea ice after a nine-month pregnancy, then nurses it for about four weeks.

In which film about sled dogs left behind in Antarctica is the young dog Max driven off by a leopard seal?

Eight Below has Max lure the seal away from a carcass so the hungry pack can eat, though it doubles back and badly injures the lead dog, Maya.

The stuffed leopard seal that Henri de Blainville first described in 1820 came from near which island group?

The Falklands supplied the skin, by Blainville's reckoning. The French zoologist studied it in a private collection and called the specimen beautiful.

Which word, meaning 'ice-loving', describes leopard seals and other animals tied to the pack ice?

Pagophilic fits well: most leopard seals stay within the pack ice all year, between roughly 50 and 80 degrees of latitude.

The leopard seal's scientific name, Hydrurga leptonyx, is translated as a 'water-worker' with what kind of claws?

Slender claws, and very small ones, tip the five digits of each front flipper. The leopard seal is the only species in the genus Hydrurga.

Which virus, better known for infecting pet dogs, is listed among the threats facing leopard seals?

Canine distemper sits on the list alongside entanglement in marine debris, growing tourism and the loss of polar ice as the climate warms.

In air, a leopard seal's hearing is about as good as that of which familiar mammal?

A human hears about as well in air as a leopard seal does. Underwater is where the seal's ears come into their own, helping it follow moving prey.

How did Frank Wild save crewmate Thomas Orde-Lees from a leopard seal that chased him across the sea ice?

Shot the animal: hearing Orde-Lees's cries, Wild ran from his tent and fired when the seal was only about 10 metres from its target.