Spotted Seal (Sealife by CollectA)

Review and images by Suspsy; edited by bmathison1972

A fairly typical member of the earless or “true” seal family, the spotted seal (Phoca largha) inhabits the cold waters of the northern Pacific Ocean. Its range includes the Yellow Sea off China, which may have been a factor in CollectA’s decision to make not one, but two toys of it in 2014. This review will focus on the adult version; the other one is a rather cute pup with fuzzy-looking white fur.

Our spotted seal measures about 10 cm long and 5.5 cm high. Its main colours are medium grey and white with black for the eyes, nose, mouth, claws, and the numerous spots adorning its body. It is balanced on its front flippers and belly with its head and hind flippers raised, as though it is shuffling clumsily but effectively across a beach or an ice flow. Unlike sea lions, fur seals, and walruses, true seals like this one cannot pull their hind flippers forward when they move about on land.

The seal’s body is covered in short, slicked fur, although it can be hard to see at first due to all the spots. On that note, the spots appear to be slightly too big, although in doing research on these seals, I’ve found that there’s endless variation in their spot patterns, so perhaps there’s one or more out there in the ocean that look like this toy. The flippers have the familiar ribbed appearance to them, complete with tiny pointed claws.

This seal’s body is chunky but streamlined, as one would expect any healthy pinniped to be. The head features a broad muzzle and large, forward-facing eyes, which give the seal a decidedly endearing appearance, not unlike a domestic dog. Like most members of its family, the spotted seal preys upon fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods. It is in turn preyed upon by larger marine predators such as sleeper sharks, killer whales, walruses, Steller’s sea lions, and polar bears. It also has to worry about land predators like brown bears, and grey wolves.

Overall, the CollectA spotted seal is a solid, satisfying toy. One hopes that the company will produce more pinnipeds in the future, as there’s a great deal of wonderful variety among them. Fingers crossed for a southern elephant seal!