A gentoo penguin — the fastest underwater swimmer of all penguins — flees for its life as a leopard seal bursts out of the water. He had spotted the penguin, resting on a fragment of broken ice. Moments later, it surged out of the water, mouth open. The penguin made it off the ice, but the seal now seemed to turn the hunt into a game. Leopard seals are formidable predators. Females can be 3. Their slender bodies are builtfor speed, with wide jaws bearing long canines and sharply pointed molars.
They hunt almost anything, from fish to the pups of other seal species. And they also play with their prey, as in this instance, with the leopard seal pursuing the penguin for more than 15 minutes before finally catching and eating it.
Hugging its flippers tight to its body, the Weddell seal closed its eyes and appeared to fall into a deep sleep. Lying on fast ice ice attached to land off Larsen Harbour, South Georgia, it was relatively safe from its predators — killer whales and leopard seals — and so could completely relax and digest.
Their large bodies are covered in a thick layer of blubber to keep them warm above and below the icy waters of the Southern Ocean. Feeding mainly on large fish, Weddell seals are impressive divers, capable of descending to more than m 1, feet. This helps them to hunt under water for long periods, sometimes more than an hour. Shooting from an inflatable boat, Ralf Schneider tightly framed the sleeping seal, using the white backdrop of ice and soft light from the overcast sky to mimic the effect of a studio portrait.
They were not disappointed. It hung out in a cecropia tree, resting but occasionally moving, slowly, along a branch to reach new leaves. Take a look at some of the Highly Commended photos from the fifty-seventh Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, opening on 15 October.
Behind the lens Eduardo has been a wildlife photographer since Copyright in WPY competition photographs remains the property of the respective photographers. You may not copy, share, reproduce or republish the photographs except as expressly permitted by copyright law. For media image usage enquiries, please contact us. There are birds that do move under the water that don't use their forelimbs and they paddle.
And so that's not really flying in the sense of forelimb developing lift. In the case of penguins they are absolutely flying only in water and not air. There are other birds like puffins alcids that also fly under water. Have a different answer or more to add to this one? Send it to us. Can penguins fly?. Why it's so hard to treat pain in infants. This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city. Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city Caracals have learned to hunt around the urban edges of Cape Town, though the predator faces many threats, such as getting hit by cars.
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