🐾
Leopard seal
Hydrurga leptonyx
Carnivores · Least concern
vs
🐻❄️
Polar bear
Ursus maritimus
Carnivores · Vulnerable
One clip names both of them
7.5 million views between them.
Level on mass: Leopard seal 376 kg, Polar bear 372 kg.
Tale of the tape
Body mass
376 kg
🐾 Leopard seal · COMBINE
372 kg
🐻❄️ Polar bear · COMBINE
Shoulder height
no figure yet
🐾 Leopard seal
1.45 m
🐻❄️ Polar bear
Body length
3.02 m
🐾 Leopard seal · COMBINE
2.25 m
🐻❄️ Polar bear · COMBINE
Top speed
no figure yet
🐾 Leopard seal
39 km/h
🐻❄️ Polar bear
Bite force
no figure yet
🐾 Leopard seal
2,121 N
🐻❄️ Polar bear
Maximum lifespan
26 yr
🐾 Leopard seal · COMBINE
45 yr
🐻❄️ Polar bear · COMBINE
Bars are sized against the larger of the two figures. Bite force figures come from individual studies and vary a lot between sources.
Animals caught on camera
Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Caniformia (suborder), home to 469 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 28 million years ago.
Estimates range from 24 to 34 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).