Ringed Seal | ||||||||||||||
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The Ringed Seal is an earless seal inhabiting the Arctic coasts. Typical adults are 85 to 160 cm long and 40 to 90 kg. They are quite long-lived seals, up to 35 years.
The populations living in different areas have evolved to separate subspecies, which are:
- Phoca hispida hispida: Arctic coasts of Europe, Russia, Canada and Alaska, including Nova Zemlya, Spitsbergen, Greenland and Baffin Island.
- Phoca hispida krascheninikovi: North Bering Sea
- Phoca hispida ochotensis: Kamchatka, Okhotsk Sea and southward to 35°N, along the Japanese Pacific coast.
- Phoca hispida botnica Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Finland
- Phoca hispida ladogensis (Ladoga Seal) Lake Ladoga
- Phoca hispida saimensis (Saimaa Seal, saimaannorppa) Lake Saimaa