Weddell Seal Gallery

Weddell seal skull, Leptonychotes weddellii

Specimen collected by Robert Falcon Scotts British Antarctic Expedition 1910-1913, also known as the Terra Nova expedition. It had a broad scientific programme and collected thousands of geological and zoological specimens. The Weddell seal is found in coastal areas of the Antarctic mainland and some sub-Antarctic islands. It relies on holes in the ice for breathing and accessing water, and uses its teeth to create the holes and keep them open. Date: 1910

© Mary Evans / Natural History Museum

Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) spy-hopping to observe Weddell Seal (Leptonychotes weddellii)

Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) spy-hopping to observe Weddell Seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) in preparation to knock it from the ice by creating a wave. Marguerite Bay, Antarctic Peninsula, summer. Freeze Frame book plate page 122-123. Taken on location for BBC series Frozen Planet

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A Weddell Seal Getting On To The Ice, November 1911, (1913). Artist: Herbert Ponting

A Weddell Seal Getting On To The Ice, November 1911, (1913). A Weddell seal climbs out of a hole onto the ice. The final expedition of British Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) left London on 1 June 1910 bound for the South Pole. The Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition (1910-1913), included a geologist, a zoologist, a surgeon, a photographer, an engineer, a ski expert, a meteorologist and a physicist among others. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition to the Antarctic in 1901-04. He also wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole. Scott, accompanied by Dr Edward Wilson, Captain Lawrence Oates, Lieutenant Henry Bowers and Petty Officer Edgar Evans, reached the Pole on 17 January 1912, only to find that the Norwegian expedition under Amundsen had beaten them to their objective by a month. Delayed by blizzards, and running out of supplies, Scott and the remainder of his team died at the end of March. Their bodies and diaries were found eight months later. From Scott's Last Expedition, Volume II. [Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1913]

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