Description
The Baikal seal is one of the smallest true seals. The adult grows to be around 1.3 m (4 ft 3 in) in length with a body mass from 63 to 70 kg (140 to 150 lb). The animals show very little sexual dimorphism; the males are only slightly larger than the females. They have a uniform, steely-grey coat on their backs and fur with a slightly more yellow tinge coating their abdomens. As the coat weathers, it becomes brownish. When first born, pups are around 4.5 kg (9.9 lb) and have a coating of white, silky, natal fur. This fur is quickly shed and exchanged for a darker coat, much like that of the adult. Rare Baikal seals can be found with spotted coats.
Read more about this topic: Baikal Seal
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)