An extreme wandering leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx, at Pitcairn Island, central South Pacific

Brent S. Stewart1, Jack S. Grove2, Kevin Mackay3

1 Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, 2595 Ingraham Street, 92109, San Diego, United States; 2 ZEGRAHM Expeditions, 166 Peace Road, 33070, Tavernier, United States; 3 

Corresponding author(s): Brent S. StewartJack S. Grove

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Stewart B S, Grove J S (2024). An extreme wandering leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx, at Pitcairn Island, central South Pacific. Version 1.0. Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node. Occurrence dataset. https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=leopardseal_pitcairn&v=1.0

Abstract

Leopard seals are distributed around the Antarctic continent principally between 50°S and 80°S though they are known to wander even farther north, particularly to Australia, New Zealand, South America, and South Africa, and several sub-Antarctic Islands. Seasonal movements of leopard seals have been correlated with seasonal changes in the distribution of sea ice with seals moving north as sea ice develops in spring and winter and southward toward the Antarctic continent as it melts in late autumn and winter. On August 9, 2013, an emaciated juvenile male leopard seal was observed swimming in Bounty Bay at Pitcairn Island (25°4′S, 130°6′W). It was found ashore at a boat ramp in the bay the next day. Because of the seal’s apparent distress, it was promptly shot and killed humanely by an island police officer and then dumped at sea before any measurements or additional observations could be made. We estimated the seal to be a 10-month-old pup, about 1.8–2 m long. The appearance of this leopard seal at Pitcairn Island is only slightly farther south than the most northern record (the Cook Islands, 21°25′S, 159°8′W) for the species, but it is the most remote occurrence yet documented worldwide and correlates with the all-time record for sea ice coverage in the Antarctic in winter 2013.

Keywords: Occurrence, Specimen

General description

Additional information: marine, harvested by iOBIS

Data published through GBIF: https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=leopardseal_pitcairn

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: Leopard Seal
Taxonomic ranks
Species: Hydrurga leptonyx
Common names: Leopard Seal

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Pitcairn Island
Coordinates: 25°4'49.12''S and 25°3'33.01''S Latitude; 130°7'26.87''W and 130°5'14.6''W Longitude 

Temporal coverage: August 9, 2013 - August 10, 2013

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive An extreme wandering leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx, at Pitcairn Island, central South Pacific
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/archive.do?r=leopardseal_pitcairn
Publication date of data: 2024-01-13
Language: English
Licences of use: Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2024-01-13
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
Stewart, B.S., Grove, J.S. An extreme wandering leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx, at Pitcairn Island, central South Pacific. Polar Biol 37, 423–425 (2014).  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-014-1447-4