Cute And Cuddly - With A Taste For Penguin Flesh

Photographer Paul Nicklen has managed to capture a series of images showing that all is not well in the ranks of the Animal Uprising™. It seems that the leopard seals have turned on the penguins. Oh, and they eat humans, too.

Between November and March, leopard seals wait in shallow water off major penguin breeding colonies.

Their aim is to capture newly fledged penguin birds who are going to sea for the first time.

The seals' teeth are fearsome weapons: front canines and incisors designed to capture and shred their prey's flesh - and back molars with sharp edges for grasping and cutting.

The creature's reputation took a dark turn in July 2003 when Kirsty Brown, a 28-year-old British marine biologist snorkelling off the Antarctic Peninsula, was grabbed by a leopard seal and pulled down into the icy waters.

She drowned despite her colleagues working for over an hour to revive her.

One presumes that a wetsuit-clad human looks an awful lot like a jumbo penguin to a leopard seal. (The last picture in the series is begging for a new caption.)