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Grey seal

Halichoerus grypus

Halichoerus grypus (Fabricius, 1791) · Phocidae WoRMS 137080

Reference photos

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The larger of the two seal species resident in the UK. Look for a rectangular, horse-like head with a long muzzle that is wide at the end, convex on top in adult males and flat in females and pups, and for widely separated nostrils lying almost parallel in a W. The coat is dark grey on the back and light grey underneath, with an irregular pattern of spots or blotches. Grey seals feed in inshore benthic habitats and haul out on remote islands, bays and caves, breeding in the autumn.

Depth

Forages mainly on the seabed down to about 100 m, and can feed at all depths across the UK continental shelf

Size

Adults up to about 2.3 m long; males over 300 kg, females around 150-200 kg

Habitat

Feeds in inshore benthic habitats and the open sea, hauling out on remote islands, bays and caves to rest, moult and breed

Behaviour

Ranges widely to forage, often over 100 km between haul-out sites, on trips of 1 to 30 days; breeds ashore in autumn

Diet

I eat

  • Sandeels, typically the predominant prey species
  • Gadoids, including cod, whiting, haddock and ling
  • Flatfish such as plaice, sole, flounder and dab, and cephalopods

Eats me

  • A few specialist adult male grey seals, which kill and eat pups and juveniles
  • Killer whales; their predation may be linked to the predicted decline in pup production in Shetland

Where you'd find it

Found all around Britain and Ireland, so you have a chance of seeing it anywhere on the coast.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

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