Seals and Sea Lions | BLUE WORLD ACADEMY
In this episode of Blue World Academy, Jonathan Bird explains the differences between seals and sea lions and how to tell them apart.
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All seals are contained within the taxonomic superfamily called pinnipeds, which translated from the Latin roots, means “fin-footed.” Within this superfamily of fin-footed marine mammals, there are three families. The first, Odobenidae, contains only one species: the Walrus. Not hard to recognize.
The next family is called Otariidae, and it contains the animals we call eared seals. Sea Lions and Fur seals are so-called “eared” seals because they have an external ear flap. I’ll come back to that.
The last family is called Phocidae, and these are the so-called true seals, or earless seals. I hate both of those common names because all seals are truly seals, so the term true seals is meaningless. And Earless? Well, Phocids lack an external ear flap, but they most definitely do have ears, so that’s a bad name too. It’s probably better to just call them Phocids.
Although they look like underwater puppydogs, seals and sea lions are actually most closely related to bears, badgers and raccoons! Which explains why they are so darn cute.
Anyway, the Otarii seals are easy to recognize. They have external ear flaps, their rear flippers can be rotated forward, and their front flippers are really strong, so they can stand up up and walk on all four flippers on land. They can even run, sort of! When they swim, they generally provide propulsion with the front flippers, like swimming the breast stroke. And they use the rear flippers to steer. And they definitely swim better than they run.
The Phocids have no external ear flaps, they cannot rotate their rear flippers forward and they can’t lift their body and walk on their fins. So on land, the best they can do is an awkward inchworm thing. In the water, they use their rear flippers for propulsion, swishing them back and forth, and the front flippers are for steering. And goofing with divers of course.