Ladoga seal activities. The Ladoga seal is listed as an Appendix II species under the Bern Convention and also included in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation. Ladoga seal The Ladoga ringed seal (; Pusa hispida ladogensis), is a freshwater subspecies of the ringed seal ("Pusa hispida") which are found entirely in Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia. The subspecies evolved during the last ice age, about 11,000 years ago. As the glaciers retreated and water levels changed, the Baltic ringed seal (including Ladoga seals) was trapped in freshwater lakes and separated from the Arctic ringed seal. It is related to
Lake Ladoga The Germanic toponym (Aldeigja → Aldoga) was soon borrowed by the Slavic population and transformed by means of the Old Russian metathesis "ald- → lad-" to . The Old Norse intermediary word between Finnish and Old Russian word is fully supported by archeology, since the Scandinavians first appeared in Ladoga in the early 750s, that is, a couple of decades before the Slavs. Other theories about the origin of the name derive it from "wave" and "wavy"; or from the Russian dialectal word алодь, meaning "open lake, extensive water field". Eugene Helimski by contrast, offers an etymology rooted in German.