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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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