This lifts their body off the ground and helps them move forward quickly. Other seals pull themselves along or wriggle about when on land. Seals are found along most coasts and cold waters but their biggest numbers are in the Arctic and Antarctic waters. The largest seal, the southern elephant seal, lives in Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic waters off South America. Eared seals are found in the southern hemisphere.
Monk seals are endangered species of earless seals which live in tropical and sub-tropical waters.
The Baikal seal is found in Lake Baikal in Russia and is the only freshwater seal. An adult grey seal usually eats about 5 kg of food per day, mainly fish. The fierce leopard seal also kills the pups of other kinds of seal, while one kind of sea-lion occasionally eats penguins. Walruses enjoy eating molluscs such as oysters, echinoderms such as starfish, and crustaceans such as shrimps. Some species of seals gather together in large numbers during the breeding season.