Pusa

Pusa
Baikal seal
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Clade:	Pinnipedia
Family:	Phocidae
Tribe:	Phocini
Genus:	Pusa Scopoli, 1771
Type species
Pusa hispida
Species
Pusa caspica Pusa hispida Pusa sibirica

Pusa is a genus of the earless seals, within the family Phocidae. The three species of this genus were split from the genus Phoca, and some sources still give Phoca as an acceptable synonym for Pusa.

The three species in this genus are found in Arctic and subarctic regions, as well as around the Caspian Sea. This includes these countries and regions: Russia, Finland, Scandinavia, Britain, Greenland, Canada, the United States, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Japan. Due to changing local environmental conditions, the ringed seals found in the Canadian region has varied patterns of growth. The northern Canadian ringed seals grow slowly to a larger size, while the southern seals grow quickly to a smaller size.

Only the Caspian seal species of Pusa is endangered, while two subspecies of the Ringed seal are vulnerable and endangered, Ladoga seal and Saimaa ringed seal respectively.

Species[]

Image	Scientific name	Common Name	Distribution
	Pusa caspica – (Gmelin, 1788)	Caspian seal	Caspian Sea
	Pusa hispida – (Schreber, 1775)	Ringed seal	northern coast of Japan in the Pacific, and throughout the North Atlantic coasts of Greenland and Scandinavia as far south as Newfoundland, and include two freshwater subspecies in northern Europe
	Pusa sibirica – Gmelin, 1788	Baikal seal or nerpa	Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia

Taxonomy[]

References[]

• Ferguson, Steven H.; et al. (2018). "Geographic Variation in Ringed Seal (Pusa Hispida) Growth Rate and Body Size". Canadian Journal of Zoology. 96 (7): 649–659. doi:10.1139/cjz-2017-0213.

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