What is the maximal age a Weddell seal reaches?
An adult Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) usually gets as old as 25 years.
Weddell seals are around 314 days in the womb of their mother. When born, they weight 27.4 kg (60.4 lbs) and measure 10.7 cm (0′ 5″). As a member of the Phocidae family (genus: Leptonychotes), their offspring is 1 babies per pregnancy. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 2.55 meter (8′ 5″).
As a reference: Usually, humans get as old as 100 years, with the average being around 75 years. After being carried in the belly of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks), they grow to an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) and weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual.
The Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) is a relatively large and abundant true seal (family: Phocidae) with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by British sealing captain James Weddell to the area of the Southern Ocean now known as the Weddell Sea. The life history of this species is well documented since it occupies fast ice environments close to the Antarctic continent and often adjacent to Antarctic bases.
Animals of the same family as a Weddell seal
Not really brothers and sisters, but from the same biological family (Phocidae):
- Harp seal becoming 42 years old
- Mediterranean monk seal becoming 23.67 years old
- Ross seal becoming 21 years old
- Spotted seal becoming 35.5 years old
- Caribbean monk seal with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Grey seal becoming 46.67 years old
- Harbor seal becoming 40 years old
- Caspian seal becoming 50 years old
- Northern elephant seal becoming 20.25 years old
- Ringed seal becoming 46 years old
Animals that reach the same age as Weddell seal
With an average age of 25 years, Weddell seal are in good companionship of the following animals:
- Ursine tree-kangaroo usually reaching 20.17 years
- Red-shanked douc usually reaching 25 years
- Sable antelope usually reaching 22.25 years
- Barbary macaque usually reaching 22 years
- Giant anteater usually reaching 26 years
- Wolf usually reaching 29.5 years
- Barbary sheep usually reaching 21 years
- Chital usually reaching 20.75 years
- Eastern grey kangaroo usually reaching 24 years
- Big brown bat usually reaching 20 years
Animals with the same number of babies Weddell seal
The same number of babies at once (1) are born by:
- Black crested gibbon
- Checkered elephant shrew
- Peters’s flat-headed bat
- Round-eared tube-nosed bat
- Large-eared pied bat
- Sooty mustached bat
- Black wallaroo
- Dwarf hutia
- Mauritian flying fox
- Bunyoro rabbit
Weighting as much as Weddell seal
A fully grown Weddell seal reaches around 400 kg (881.85 lbs). So do these animals:
- Risso’s dolphin weighting 387.25 kilos (853.74 lbs) on average
- Horse weighting 401.8 kilos (885.82 lbs) on average
- Grévy’s zebra weighting 405.5 kilos (893.97 lbs) on average
- Amazonian manatee weighting 418 kilos (921.53 lbs) on average
- Plains zebra weighting 400 kilos (881.85 lbs) on average
- Moose weighting 471.45 kilos (1039.37 lbs) on average
- African manatee weighting 454 kilos (1000.9 lbs) on average
- Steller sea lion weighting 383.23 kilos (844.88 lbs) on average
- Pygmy sperm whale weighting 431.25 kilos (950.74 lbs) on average
- Polar bear weighting 373.35 kilos (823.09 lbs) on average
Animals as big as a Weddell seal
Those animals grow as big as a Weddell seal:
- Mountain nyala with 2.25 meter (7′ 5″)
- Rough-toothed dolphin with 2.44 meter (8′ 1″)
- Striped dolphin with 2.3 meter (7′ 7″)
- Tamaraw with 2.2 meter (7′ 3″)
- Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin with 2.37 meter (7′ 10″)
- Baird’s tapir with 2.2 meter (7′ 3″)
- Moose with 2.1 meter (6′ 11″)
- Giant eland with 2.52 meter (8′ 4″)
- Malayan tapir with 2.22 meter (7′ 4″)
- Hooded seal with 2.33 meter (7′ 8″)