Ringed seal - Definition

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).