Antarctic seal facts and discoveries for children and parents
Luna enjoys discovering what others have overlooked. A seal resting on ice offers plenty to notice: the shape of its head, the length of its flippers and the water waiting just beyond its resting place.
Join Luna to meet the real leopard seal. Explore its ocean home, discover how its body suits life at sea and listen to its underwater calls. Then become wildlife observation detectives together.
Luna is our fictional leopard seal, with her own appearance and personality. Real leopard seals are wild animals with needs and behaviours of their own. Whisper, our Weddell seal, represents a different species.
Meet the real leopard seal
Scientific name: Hydrurga leptonyx
Look for: A long, slender body, a large head and long front flippers. [1]
Its name: The spotted coat inspired the name “leopard seal”. It is a seal, not a member of the cat family. [4]
Size: Adults are usually around 3 metres long. Large females can exceed 3.5 metres and weigh more than 500 kilograms. Females are generally larger than males. [1]
Home: Antarctic waters and surrounding islands, often among drifting pack ice. Some travel much farther north. [1]
On the menu: Krill, fish, squid, penguins and some other seals. Meals vary between individuals and places. [1]
A mammal at sea
Leopard seals breathe air and feed their pups milk. Like other true seals, they have ear openings without external ear flaps. A layer of blubber beneath the skin helps insulate the body and stores energy. [2, 7]
Talk together: If an animal has a spotted coat, what else would you check before deciding what species it is?
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A body suited to ocean life
A streamlined swimmer
A leopard seal has a long, slender body and long front flippers. Its shape suits movement through water. [1]
A streamlined body reduces resistance as an animal moves through water. Seals use their flippers to help propel and steer themselves. [2]
Look closely: Follow the outline of a seal in a wildlife photograph. Where is its body broadest? How does the shape change towards its head and tail?
Different views reveal different clues
A photograph of a resting seal can hide a flipper behind its body. A view from another angle may reveal it. Compare several photographs before deciding what you are looking at.
Ask your child: Which details would you draw first to help someone recognise a leopard seal?
Warmth beneath the skin
Blubber is a layer of fat that insulates seals and stores energy. Their bodies suit life in cold water, while their lungs mean they must return to air to breathe. [2]
A word to discover: An adaptation is a feature or behaviour that helps an animal live in its environment. A streamlined body and insulation are two examples.
A brief look at feeding adaptations
Leopard seals have teeth with different jobs. Their front teeth grip larger prey, while their cheek teeth can retain small prey as water is pushed out. Researchers have observed suction and filtering working together. [3]
This is one part of the animal’s wider life, alongside swimming, resting, communicating and raising young.
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Ice homes voices and growing pups
An ice landscape that moves
Pack ice is made of floating pieces called floes. Winds, currents and waves move them. Fast ice, by comparison, stays attached to the coast, islands or grounded icebergs. [8]
Leopard seals commonly use pack ice and tend to be solitary. They are also capable travellers: some are seen on Australian and New Zealand coasts. [1]
Ask your child: How might a drifting resting place change an animal’s view of its surroundings?
A voice beneath the water
Leopard seals make underwater calls, including trills and whistles. Their voices are among the recordings in the Australian Antarctic Program’s Sounds of Antarctica collection. [6]
Researchers investigate how vocal behaviour relates to breeding and communication. A recorded call is evidence to study, rather than a sentence we can translate word for word. [4]
Explore leopard seal trills and whistles in Sounds of Antarctica
Listen together: Choose one recording. Does its pitch rise, fall or stay steady? Describe what you hear before guessing why the animal made it.
A pup on the ice
A female leopard seal usually gives birth to one pup on sea ice during the Antarctic spring or early summer. The mother feeds her young milk. [1, 2]
Their remote habitat and often solitary lives make leopard seals difficult to study. Scientists still have questions about how they breed and raise their young. “We do not know yet” can be an honest and exciting scientific answer. [4]
A word to discover: To haul out means to leave the water and rest on land or ice. Resting above the surface is part of a seal’s life as well as swimming below it. [2]
Luna and Whisper introduce different species
In wildlife photographs, compare a leopard seal’s long body and large head with a Weddell seal’s broad body and relatively small head. Both species can have mottled coats, so look beyond the spots. [1, 10]
Luna’s interest in night-time exploration belongs to her character. It does not mean that every wild leopard seal is active only at night.
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Become a wildlife observation detective
Try the shape and movement challenge
You will need two or three photographs of leopard seals, paper and pencils. Include a whole-body view and, if available, a swimming view. The animal sources below are a good starting point. Allow ten to fifteen minutes.
1. Choose a photograph and trace the animal’s outline in the air with your finger. Notice the head, body and flippers.
2. Draw a simple outline on paper. Add the visible flippers and label any part hidden by the pose.
3. Compare it with another photograph. What has changed: the animal’s pose, the camera angle or what you can see?
4. Add arrows showing how you think the animal might move next. Explain the clues behind your prediction.
5. If you can watch a suitable swimming clip, compare your prediction with what you observe. Otherwise, write one question that a still photograph cannot answer.
A photograph captures a moment. It can show shapes and positions, but we need moving footage or repeated observations to investigate how an animal moves over time.
For younger children: Point to the head and flippers together. Draw a large outline and let your child add details they can see.
For older children: Separate observations from predictions. “I can see one front flipper” records what the picture shows; “I think the other is behind the body” is an explanation to investigate.
Compare two real seals
Look at a leopard seal photograph and a Weddell seal photograph. Use these clues to begin your comparison. [1, 10]
| Look at | Leopard seal | Weddell seal |
| Head and body | Large head and a long, slender body. | Small head relative to a broad body. |
| Typical ice habitat | Commonly associated with drifting pack ice. | Often associated with coastal fast ice. |
Photographs show individuals in particular poses. Use several clues together; a single marking or angle may be misleading.
Keep a family discovery notebook
Try three short entries: “We predicted”, “We noticed” and “We still wonder”. A drawing and a question are enough to start. Next time you meet Luna in a story, add another discovery about the real animal.
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Caring for the leopard seal world
A whole habitat matters
Changes to sea ice can affect leopard seal resting places, pupping habitat and prey. Scientists are still investigating the full effects on this species. [4, 9]
Antarctic krill gather in swarms, and their young can feed on algae beneath sea ice. These small animals have lives and habitats of their own. Changes in climate, sea ice and ocean chemistry can affect their early survival. [5]
A simple way to explain it: “A leopard seal needs more than space to swim. Its home includes resting places and the living things it eats. Protecting an animal means understanding those connections.”
Something to do together
Choose a familiar wild animal and draw what it needs around it: food, water, shelter and space. Ask what could change if one part were missing. This is a starting point for thinking about habitats, wherever your family lives.
Families can practise caring for the environment by reducing waste or helping collect litter locally. Protecting Antarctic ecosystems also takes work by scientists, governments, industries and communities. Children can learn and contribute without carrying the whole responsibility.
Questions children may ask
Is a leopard seal a kind of leopard? No. Its spotted coat inspired the name, but it is a marine mammal in the seal family. [4]
Can a still photograph show how an animal swims? It gives us clues about shape and position. Moving footage or repeated observations help us investigate the movement itself.
For curious grown ups
Our stories imagine friendships between animals. These resources explore their real lives. If your child notices a difference, you can explain that stories and nature follow different rules, while keeping the answer simple and factual.
Luna’s friendly story world is imaginative. Wild leopard seals are powerful predators and need plenty of space. Photographs and recordings let families explore them without approaching or disturbing an animal.
Keep exploring with Luna
What did you notice when you looked beyond the spots? Choose one detail or movement to investigate next. A different view can reveal something you missed the first time.
Animal facts reviewed on 20 October 2026. Sources and further reading follow.
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Sources and further reading
Numbered references in the text correspond to these links. Begin with the animal profiles, photographs and sound recordings; research explanations are useful for adults exploring further.
[1] Australian Antarctic Program — Leopard seal
[2] Smithsonian Ocean — Pinnipeds Seals Sea Lions and Walruses
[3] Monash University — Research on leopard seal teeth and filter feeding
[4] Natural History Museum — Leopard seal diet behaviour and research
[5] Australian Antarctic Program — Antarctic krill
[6] Australian Antarctic Program — Sounds of Antarctica
[7] Australian Antarctic Program — Seals and sea lions
[8] Australian Antarctic Program — Sea ice
[9] Australian Antarctic Program — Antarctic sea ice in crisis
[10] Australian Antarctic Program — Weddell seal
Choose what suits your family
For younger children, start with a photograph and the observation activity. The Natural History Museum article includes descriptions and images of predation, so it is best previewed by an adult. The sound collection offers another way to explore the animal.
For adults following the feeding research
The Monash account explains the suction and filtering described briefly in the feeding section. Families can explore this further if it interests their child.