Cephalopods as prey. II. Seals

For 31 of the 33 extant species of pinnipeds it is either known or suspected that they include cephalopods in their diet. The two exceptions are the Baikal Seal and the Caspian Seal, which inhabit freshwater where cephalopods do not occur. The available evidence indicates that no species of seal specializes entirely on cephalopods and only few regularly eat appreciable quantities of this prey, although for several they appear to be seasonally important prey. For most pinnipeds only rudimentary prey identifications have been published. The most common taxa of cephalopods reported to be consumed by seals are members of the neritic Loliginidae, the oceanic Ommastrephidae, Onychoteuthidae and Gonatidae, as well as benthic octopods. Too few quantitative diet analyses on enough pinnipeds have been done to quantify the consumption of cephalopods by seals globally with any precision.