A NOAA scientist holds up the skull of a Crabeater Seal, part of the collection they keep at their Western Regional Center. NOAA held an open house here, and showed off parts of the work they do. These bones are kept in old aircraft hangars that were once part of Naval Station Puget Sound, and are now mostly Magnuson Park.
Note the complex teeth, used not unlike baleen to trap krill via filtration.
I'm having a Baader-Meinhof event here - I had never heard of crabeater seals until two weeks ago, and now I'm seeing them all over the place. :)
ReplyDeleteEmily Graslie talks about them towards the end of this video, exploring the collection at the Chicago Museum of Natural History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEQvXmZxOa0