The harp seal or saddleback seal is a species of earless seal native to the northernmost Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 and adjacent parts of the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

. It now belongs to the monotypic

Monotypic

In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...

 genus Pagophilus. Its scientific name, Pagophilus groenlandicus, means "ice-lover from Greenland", and its synonym

Synonym (taxonomy)

In scientific nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that is or was used for a taxon of organisms that also goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies...

, Phoca groenlandica means "Greenland seal". Originally in the genus Phoca

Phoca

Phoca is a genus of the earless seals, within the Family Phocidae. It now contains just two species, the Common Seal and the Spotted Seal...

with a number of other species, it has since been reclassified into its own genus Pagophilus.
The harp seal has a black face with silvery-gray body.