[NatureNS] seal eating rocks

Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:26:08 -0300
From: iamclar@DAL.CA
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rock would simply jam in the oesophagus,
All:

Way back in my arctic years in in my monograph on the Ringed Seal  
(1958, Bull. Fish. Res. Board Canada, 118, 97 pp) I wrote (in the  
stilted "scientific" writing of those days): "Bearded seal stomachs  
which have been examined by the writer often contained often contained  
stones sand and mud. Such evidence of indiscriminate feeding was  
rarely found in ringed seals which were feeding benthonically. Pebbles  
were found in the otherwise emmpty stomachs of three seals taken  
during the taken during the fasting season. These may have been  
swallowed purposely, perhaps to get rid of the nematode worms with  
which the stomachs were infested (see also Hahn, 1884)."

So there's another suggestion - but I doubt it applies to the large  
numbers of stones described by Randy Lauff - unless Randy found  
excessive numbers of nematodes in his seal g.i. tract.

Cheers, Ian
Ian McLaren

Ian McLaren


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