Nerpa

“	世界一深い湖として有名なバイカル湖にだけ住んでいる唯一の淡水産ア ザラシで、成体でも 1.2mほどにしかなりません。ズングリとした体 と、真ん丸で大きな目が特徴で、 当館では餌にアジを与えています。	”
	— Toba Aquarium, Japan

This is a nerpa on a good day, mind you.

The nerpa (Pusa sibirica), нерпа in Cyrillic, νερπα in the Greek alphabet, or Baikal seal, is a rotten pinniped found only in Lake Baikal, though rogue satellite populations exist in thresholds such as Toba Aquarium. It is the smallest and only purely freshwater species of seal in the world (other freshwater seal populations exist, but they are either subspecies or only partly freshwater).

Poor guy.

just woke up...

Niko older than 2 years. Getting on in years...

Nerpas are considered one of the ugliest damn things ever. Their bulging eyes, their wrinkled faces, their stink of gasoline. They just sit around doing nothing except taking up space. For these reasons, many are looking forward to the total seal extinction event.

Trivia

• Nerpa comes from the Russian нерпа (nerpa), which comes from the Finnish norppa, somehow meaning ringed seal.