### Identification The Bearded Seal is the Arctic’s most "distinguished" resident. Measuring up to 2.5 meters, it is significantly larger and heavier-set than the Ringed or Spotted seals often found in the same waters. Look for a small, blocky head perched on a thick neck and a plain, unspotted coat of charcoal or silver-grey, often stained a rusty orange around the face from mineral-rich seafloor mud. Its most diagnostic field marks are its square-shaped foreflippers (unlike the pointed flippers of other seals) and its namesake "beard"—an incredibly dense thicket of long, white mystacial vibrissae (whiskers) that hang prominently even when wet.
### Habitat & Range This is a circumpolar species of the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Unlike the deep-diving Hooded Seal, the Bearded Seal is a creature of the shallow continental shelf. They are almost exclusively associated with drifting pack ice in waters less than 200 meters deep. You’ll find them where the ice is broken and moving, providing easy access to the open leads they use for breathing and escaping predators.
### Behaviour Observing a "Square-flipper" in the wild requires stealth; they are notoriously wary, usually resting solitary on the very edge of an ice floe, head pointing toward the water for a split-second escape. During the spring breeding season, the Arctic silence is broken by the males' haunting underwater "songs"—long, spiraling trills that can carry for miles. Unlike social sea lions, these are loners, only congregating loosely where food is exceptionally abundant.
### Diet Bearded Seals are benthic specialists, meaning they hunt on the ocean floor. They use their sensitive whiskers like a high-tech "mine detector" to feel for prey in the soft sediment. They primarily "vacuum" up shrimp, crabs, clams, and bottom-dwelling fish like sculpins and arctic cod.
### Fascinating Fact When a Bearded Seal hauls out and its face begins to dry in the wind, its trademark whiskers don't just stay straight—they curl into tight, elegant corkscrew spirals, giving the seal a whimsical, Victorian-style mustache!