Halichoerus
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Scientific Classification Kingdom: Anamalia (Animals) |
Halichoerus is a genus consisting of two species within the true seal family of nineteen species: the Grey seal (also known as the Atlantic gray seal, Atlantic seal, Baltic gray seal, Gray seal, and Horsehead seal) and the Ribbon seal.
Together with the families of Eared seals and Walruses, True seals form the group of marine mammals known as pinnipeds.
There are two subspecies of Grey seal, with different geographic distributions:
- Atlantic grey seal (Halichoerus grypus grypus), which is found in the western and eastern North Atlantic Ocean
- Baltic grey seal (Halichoerus grypus macrorhynchus), which found in the Baltic Sea
Ribbon seals are found in coastal areas of the north Pacific Ocean and in the seas bordering Alaska and Russia: Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea and Okhotsk Sea.
Further Reading
- Halichoerus grypus (Fabricius, 1791) Encyclopedia of Life (accessed July 18, 2010)
- Halichoerus grypus, Smith, J., 2008, Animal Diversity Web (accessed July 18, 2010)
- Grey Seal, Seal Conservation Society (accessed July 18, 2010)
- Halichoerus grypus, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (accessed July 18, 2010)
- The Pinnipeds: Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses, Marianne Riedman, University of California Press, 1991 ISBN: 0520064984
- Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals, Bernd Wursig, Academic Press, 2002 ISBN: 0125513402
- Marine Mammal Research: Conservation beyond Crisis, edited by John E. Reynolds III, William F. Perrin, Randall R. Reeves, Suzanne Montgomery and Timothy J. Ragen, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005 ISBN: 0801882559
- Walker's Mammals of the World, Ronald M. Nowak, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999 ISBN: 0801857899
- Grey Seal, MarineBio.org (accessed July 18, 2010)
