Behavior
The diet of ribbon seal consists almost exclusively of pelagic creatures: fish like pollocks, eelpouts, the Arctic Cod and cephalopods such as squid and octopus; young seals eat crustaceans as well. The ribbon seal dives to depths of up to 200 m in search of food; it is solitary and forms no herds. Females reach sexual maturity at 2 to 5 years and males reach sexual maturity at 3 to 6 years, and an individual may reach twenty to twenty-five years of age. Mating takes place from late April to early May. Young animals are born on the ice in April and May. They are fed for four weeks on their mother's milk, then leave their mother. They remain on the ice for a few more weeks, in which they lose their dense white fur and lose a drastic amount of weight. After this period, they are able to dive and hunt by themselves.
Predators of the ribbon seal include the orca, the Pacific sleeper shark and the polar bear.
Read more about this topic: Ribbon Seal
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—Freda Adler (b. 1934)
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—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)
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—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)