What is "hooded seal"

Hooded \Hood"ed\, a.

1. Covered with a hood.

2. Furnished with a hood or something like a hood.

3. Hood-shaped; esp. (Bot.), rolled up like a cornet of paper; cuculate, as the spethe of the Indian turnip.

4. (Zo["o]l.)

   1. Having the head conspicuously different in color from the rest of the plumage; -- said of birds.

   2. Having a hoodlike crest or prominence on the head or neck; as, the hooded seal; a hooded snake.

      Hooded crow, a European crow (Corvus cornix); -- called also hoody, dun crow, and royston crow.

      Hooded gull, the European black-headed pewit or gull.

      Hooded merganser. See Merganser.

      Hooded seal, a large North Atlantic seal ( Cystophora cristata). The male has a large, inflatible, hoodlike sac upon the head. Called also hoodcap.

      Hooded sheldrake, the hooded merganser. See Merganser.

      Hooded snake. See Cobra de capello, Asp, Haje, etc.

      Hooded warbler, a small American warbler ( Sylvania mitrata).

n. An arctic seal, (taxlink Cystophora christata species noshow=1), notable for the fleshy bulge on its forehead and nose.

n. medium-sized blackish-gray seal with large inflatable sac on the head; of Arctic and northern Atlantic waters [syn: bladdernose, Cystophora cristata]

The hooded seal (Cystophora cristata) is a large phocid found only in the central and western North Atlantic, ranging from Svalbard in the east to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the west. The seals are typically silver-grey in colour, with black spots that vary in size covering most of the body. Hooded seal pups are known as "blue-backs" because their coats are blue-grey on the back with whitish bellies, though this coat is shed after 14 months of age when the pups molt.