Occurrence of leopard seals in northern Argentina

Abstract

In northern Argentina the only record of a leopard seal was a male killed in Puerto Quequn in the forties Beach surveys in northern Buenos Aires Province (3620 -3835S) since 1987 resulted in four new records (Table The seals presented a poor physical condition and died a few hours later (records 8 and 9) or only the carcass was found (record 11); no food traces were found in the digestive tracts. The fourth animal (record 10) was alive but deeply wounded and unable to move. It could not be recovered for rehabilitation on this day and on the subsequent day we were unable to find it. It presumably died and the body lost during high tide. In the marine mammal collections of Buenos Aires and La Plata Museums in Argentina no additional leopard seal material from northern Argentina is deposited. Leopard seals in northern Argentina were found between June and December, in agreement with the record of vagrants in Patagonia, Uruguay and Brazil. Ninety percent of the leopard seal vagrants are recorded from June to September (Figure Similar seasonal patterns are recorded in South Georgia (April-November;