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Crabeater Seal

This Crabeater Seal lying on the ice next to the Weddell Sea looked like an olive green blob. It appeared smaller than some of the other seals, and it had a few indented lines on its flanks. At the museum at Grytviken, we saw a display of seal teeth. They do not look like human teeth. Each tooth has multiple lobes which are used for filtering krill -- the Crabeater does not eat crabs. Krill comes from a Norwegian word, as do many whaling and sea terms in the Antarctic region, and it simply means whale food. Plankton is a broader term and means any food that floats, regardless of who in the food chain consumes it.

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Uploaded on March 2, 2017
Taken on January 23, 2016