Page 94 - Animals of the Sakhalin Region in myths and legends

Steller sea lion

(Eumetopias jubatus)

The body length of males is 2.6–3.9 m, of females — up to 2.6 m, body
weight, respectively, up to 1100 and 350 kg. The physique of males is
overweight with a powerful body; the head is large with a short wide muzzle
and an upturned nose. The long guard hairs around the neck form a mane. In
females, the body is slender with a relatively small head on a long flexible
neck. The awn is short, rare, hard; the down layer is poorly expressed. The fins
are hairless only at the tip. The body coloration of males on the dorsal side is
light brown or straw yellow, sometimes almost white; on the ventral — dark
brown; females are colored more uniformly.
Steller sea lions feed on fish, mainly bottom (greenling, pollock, cod,
herring, salmon, flounder, etc.) and squid.
Endemic to the North Pacific Ocean. In the waters of Russia, it is distributed
from the Commander Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula to the south
through the Kuril Islands, including the Sea of Okhotsk, to the northern part
of the Sea of Japan. There are 13 known reproductive rookeries in Russia,
of which 9 are located within the Sakhalin Region: 7 rookeries on the Kuril
Islands, as well as on Tyuleniy and Moneron Islands.

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