Description
Distinguishing features of this earless seal include square fore flippers and thick bristles on its muzzle. Adults are greyish-brown in colour, darker on the back; rarely with a few faint spots on the back or dark spots on the sides. Occasionally the face and neck are reddish-brown. Bearded seal pups are born with a greyish-brown natal fur with scattered patches of white on the back and head. The bearded seal is unique in the subfamily Phocinae in having two pairs of teats, a feature it shares with monk seals.
Barded seals reach about 2.1 m (6.9 ft) to 2.7 m (8.9 ft) in nose-to-tail length and from 200 kg (441 lb) to 430 kg (948 lb) in weight. Both sexes are about the same size.
Bearded seals are a primary food source for polar bears and for the Inuit of the Arctic coast. The Inuktitut name for the seal is Ugyuk or Oogrook or Oogruk. The seal's skin is used to cover a wooden frame boat (Umiak).
The body fat content of a bearded seal is 30–40%.
Read more about this topic: Bearded Seal
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)