BIRTH-SITE CHARACTERISTICS AND PRENATAL MOLTING IN BEARDED SEALS (ERIGNATHUS-BARBATUS)

In Svalbard, Norway, bearded seals give birth on small, first-year, ic e flows in the free-floating packice or on similarly sized white, glac ial-ice areas frozen into gray, land-fast ice. Sites of the latter typ e usually were located near the edge of the ice. Access to the sea was always readily available; all birth sites were <1 m from water. Well- formed, dark, gray, lanugo hair disks, similar to those of hooded seal s (Cystophora cristata), were found at all parturition sites of bearde d seals. All young weighing <40 kg had a mixture of 30-mm long, wavy, gray hairs and 20-mm, straight, coarser hair of a somewhat darker gray . Older, larger young had increasingly less lanugo and more stiff hair .