Seals and sea lions are easy to confuse, and they are related: together with the walrus, both are pinnipeds — Latin for "fin footed." But once you know what to look for, they are easy to tell apart.
A sea lion (left) and a seal. Sea lions are brown, bark loudly, "walk" on land on their large flippers and have visible ear flaps; seals have small flippers, wriggle on their bellies on land and have no visible ear flaps. Credit: NOAA.
Five differences
| Sea lions | Seals | |
|---|---|---|
| Front flippers | long, mostly skin-covered | small, furry and stubby — thinly webbed, with a claw on each little toe |
| Ears | small outer ear flaps | no external ears ("earless" or "true" seals); just tiny holes on the sides of the head |
| Voice | noisy — they bark | quieter, with soft grunts |
| On land and in the water | walk on land by rotating their hind flippers forward under their bodies | better adapted to the water; hind flippers angle backward and do not rotate, making them fast swimmers but belly crawlers on land |
| Social life | gather in herds or rafts that can top 1,500 animals | less social; often solitary, coming ashore together only once a year to mate |
Why sea lions end up in shows
Because sea lions can "walk" on land, they are more likely to be the pinnipeds you see in aquariums and marine shows.
Built for different lives
Seals may look chubby, but they are generally smaller and more streamlined than sea lions, and they spend more time in the water. Sea lions, meanwhile, often haul out in crowds, scores at a time, lounging together in a heap on the sand in the midday sun.
Sources
Based on "What's the difference between seals and sea lions?" from NOAA's National Ocean Service, a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from oceanservice.noaa.gov
1
0
0
0
Comments
