Ringed Seal - Definition and Overview

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 Novaya 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

The three last subspecies are isolated from the others, like the closely related Nerpa (Baikal Seal).