Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

mother had a large bloodstained scar on her muzzle, presumably a bite from
her pup.
I saw only one dead pup, which was 2-4 days old. A giant petrel was picking at
the carcass and already both eyes were gone, the pelvis had been stripped of
meat and an opening in the abdominal wall revealed the intestines – it was
gruesome.
Thee weeks into September a Weddell and her pup were close-by in Gash Cove
and I watched them for some time. The pup was very playful and the mother
responded by rolling on it and arching her back, snapping and occasionally
making what looked like a yawn. The pup was quite active, shuffling around
her. Then it began nuzzling her side and raising its head, obviously looking for a
nipple to suck. In this way it moved along the side of the mother as far as the
fore-flipper and then back again to the hind-flipper, when it barked, or rather
made a whooping cough. The mother raised her head and looked around, then
mooed and rolled over onto her side. The pup raised one flipper and placed it on
the side of the mother to steady itself, then raised its head to the upper nipple;
regular sucking and gurgling followed and the small brown head bobbed
appreciatively. It changed to the lower nipple for a few minutes, then alternated
between the two and finally came back to the lower nipple, putting in a long
session and curling and wriggling its body in ecstasy. All this time the mother
lay still.
When I moved the mother reared up, making a ‘destroyer siren’ noise, her throat
moving in time with it. Then she snapped her teeth a dozen or so times, like a
rattle - and made directly for me. I stood still and she stopped a few yards from
her pup. Emitting frequent cries she rolled over and snaked her neck a few times,
regarding me with her head on its side - the line of her eyes vertical. The pup
meanwhile was frantically trying to find a teat and barking petulantly. The
mother turned and humped a few yards off, looking around at the pup which
followed. They progressed in this manner to a point seven yards away, when the
mother again rolled on her side and the pup slowly came up to her and began
again to feed.
Next day it was windy and overcast, but we decided to go along the coast to
Stygian Cove under Mt Robin. Derek came along and we travelled on ski across
the sea ice across Starfish Bay and around Berryhead. There were no seals until
Berryhead, where I watched a Weddell and her pup at a breathing hole. The pup
had difficulty emerging from the hole, but got about halfway up a sloping shelf
of ice on one side of it and then became stuck. Its claws couldn’t obtain a grip on
the smooth ice and it used its teeth in the same way as the adults do, to rasp the
ice. This was repeated several times - each time swinging the head from side to
side with the teeth cutting into the ice. I noticed that its gums were bleeding.
The mother in turn rasped at the ice, her jaws open, swinging her head from side
to side and using both upper and lower teeth. This effort produced a series of
parallel grooves in the ice across the slope. Then she got behind the pup, trying
to push it up the ramp. Again no success. So next she tried in vain to push it
upwards from beneath. The pup seemed quite at home in the water; it was
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