Baikal seal
Amazing fact
Baikal seals usually molt on the ice in late spring.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Baikal seals usually molt on the ice in late spring.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Baikal seal
- Scientific name
- Pusa sibirica
- Japanese name
- バイカルアザラシ
- Group
- Freshwater animals
- Class
- Mammalia
- Order
- Carnivora
- Family
- Phocidae
- Genus
- Pusa
A seal found in Lake Baikal in Siberia and the rivers connected to it, and nowhere else. It lives in fresh water, not in the sea.
It has large eyes. Its babies are white all over, while adults have a silvery-gray back.
In winter, when the lake freezes, it stays near breathing holes it has made in the ice and keeps them open by scraping with its strong claws.
How the Baikal seal lives
It does most of its foraging at twilight and night. It eats mainly fish, as well as invertebrates from the lake. In summer, it moves southeast around the lake and hauls out on rocks and shore.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- average 1.3 mUniversity of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
- Weight
- 50–130 kgUniversity of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
- Diet
- Mainly fishUniversity of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
- Range
- Lake Baikal鳥羽水族館
Where the Baikal seal has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- バイカルアザラシ
- 简体中文
- 贝加尔海豹
- 繁體中文
- 貝加爾海豹
- 한국어
- 바이칼물범
- Español
- Nerpa
- Français
- Phoque de Sibérie
- Deutsch
- Baikalrobbe
- Português (Brasil)
- Nerpa
- Italiano
- Nerpa
- العربية
- فقمة بايكال
- Tiếng Việt
- Hải cẩu Baikal
- Русский
- Байкальская нерпа
- Türkçe
- Baykal Foku
- ไทย
- แมวน้ำไบคาล
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — バイカルアザラシChecked: 2026-11-03
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Pusa sibiricaChecked: 2026-11-03
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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