The crabeater seal loves its seafood-but it doesn't eat crab. This aquatic mammal thrives where many crabs can't, in the icy waters of Antarctica. It feeds on tiny krill and shares the territory with other krill-feeding mammals-such as whales. The crabeater even manages to out-eat its gigantic cousins; its population has soared to more than 70 million, making the crabeater seal the most numerous big mammal in the sea.
Tight Seal: This seal likes to hunt under the cover of darkness, so it has big eyes that help it see in dimly lit waters. Its sharp vision helps it find food, even during times of the year when the sun doesn't rise for weeks in its frigid habitat.
Lockdown: The crabeater seal's sharp teeth lock together when the creature closes its mouth. "Spikes" on the ridges of each tooth stab into prey and trap them in place, but leave gaps through which the seal can filter out salty seawater.
A Whale of a Meal[]
This seal hunts by night and swallows tiny krill by the pound, out-eating even big whales.
Despite its name, the crabeater seal doesn't eat crabs. Instead, this aquatic mammal dines on mouthfuls of tiny, shrimp-like creatures called krill. Krill flow by the millions in currents beneath the ice floes of the Antarctic seas, and each seal eats up to 45 pounds of them during every nighttime meal. Many whales also gulp down krill, but not as much as the crabeater seal as a whole. The entire population of crabeater seals gobbles down more than 450 million tons of krill a year!
Ice is Nice: The crabeater seal can often be seen resting on blocks of floating ice. The seal usually stays in waters with lots of ice floes so it can take a break from swimming from time to time.
Beware the Leopard: Some young members of this species fall prey to the half-ton leopard seal, but many can speed away through the water at up to 15 mph. The crabeaters will jump onto the ice, where the leopard seal is slow and can't hunt effectively.
Dive for Dinner[]
- After basking in the sun for most of the day, a crabeater seal slips into the water to search for its nighttime dinner of krill.
- The seal finds a swarm of its prey drifting through the water, making tight turns with its flexible spine to pass through the swarm again and again.
- The seal opens its jaws to take in a mouthful of krill, and gets a gulp of seawater with them. The seal locks the krill in place with its teeth while spitting the water out.
Trading Card[]
Trivia[]
- Crabeater Seal is the only seal in Monsters of the Deep. The other two seals are featured in Nightmares of Nature, as are the other pinnipeds.
- The card's front illustration is also used in the Wildlife Explorer series, on the Crabeater Seal's profile. The main difference is the Wildlife Explorer version is flipped, oriented much more vertically on the card, and has blue water around the seal's body.
- The card also shares the main image on the back right, and the illustrations for "Dive for Dinner". The latter, titled "Going in for the Krill", has an additional image of the seal sliding into the water.
- The scenario in the Did You Know? section about killer whales tipping over icebergs to eat seals happens on said creature's knowledge card, only with a Weddell Seal instead.