The ringed seal (Pusa hispida), also known as the jar seal and as netsik or nattiq by the Inuit, is an earless seal (family: Phocidae) inhabiting the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. The ringed seal is a relatively small seal, rarely greater than 1.5 m in length, with a distinctive patterning of dark spots surrounded by light grey rings, whence its common name. It is the most abundant and wide-ranging ice seal in the northern hemisphere: ranging throughout the Arctic Ocean, into the Bering Sea and Okhotsk Sea as far south as the northern coast of Japan in the Pacific, and throughout the North Atlantic coasts of Greenland and Scandinavia as far south as Newfoundland, and include two freshwater subspecies in northern Europe. Ringed seals are one of the primary prey of polar bears and have long been a component of the diet of indigenous people of the Arctic.
Read more about Ringed Seal: Description, Taxonomy and Phylogeny, Range and Habitat, Life History, Diet, Predators, Human Interactions, Subspecies
Famous quotes containing the words ringed and/or seal:
“But such as you and I do not seem old
Like men who live by habit. Every day
I ride with falcon to the rivers edge
Or carry the ringed mail upon my back,
Or court a woman; neither enemy,
Game-bird, nor woman does the same thing twice....”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“The denial of our duty to act in this case is a denial of our right to act; and if we have no right to act, then may we well be termed the white slaves of the North, for like our brethren in bonds, we must seal our lips in silence and despair.”
—Angelina Grimké (18051879)