In the daytime, the leopard seal peacefully lies on the ice floe, and with the onset of the night, when the clouds of krill rise to the surface from the depths, the sea leopard comes time for lunch. Krill is about 45% of the leopard’s diet, another 10% is made up of different fish and cephalopods. The special structure of the jaws allows water to pass through the teeth and to hold krill and fish in the mouth. However, not the absorption of krill and fish brought to sea leopard seals the glory of predators, and hunting for large animals. In autumn, sea leopards become more aggressive, they often come ashore, where fat seals and young inexperienced penguins are found in the water. Leopard kills animals for the sake of fat. Often, Arctic researchers have witnessed the leopard’s attack on penguins.
Penguins are very agile and maneuverable in water and have many advantages over huge leopard seals . Therefore, hunting for an adult experienced penguin will not bring success, chicks of the predator become fat and fat chicks. The leopard seal lays the victim in shallow water or hides behind an iceberg. If the penguins feel the enemy, they do not hurry to jump into the water. In this case, the leopard itself rolls out to the shore, but on land it is very clumsy and unwieldy. He is clever, maneuverable only in the water. Birds, stepping back a couple of steps from the water, become, for him unavailable. But in the water a bird caught in the teeth of a predator is doomed. Sometimes a sea leopard can play with a wounded penguin, tosses him into the air, drowns him. After that he tears the bird, removes the skin with feathers. The predator grasps the body with his teeth and shakes his head in different directions until the hide does not get off, and he does not get to the desired fat. Meat does not eat seals, it gets to the starfish. On this the hunt does not end, the predator chooses the next victim.
