#otariidae

[sealsdaily]

Today's Sea Lion Is: Making Contact With An Unknown Beast

[snototter]

A Galapagos sea lion (Zalophus wollebaeki) sleeping in Galapagos, Ecuador

by Tim Matthews

[morgansram]

Leaping California Sea Lion

[drhoz]

#2422 - Arctocephalus forsteri - Long-nosed Fur Seal

Surprise find while I was looking around the base of Puritutu Rock for interesting limpets.

AKA kekeno, Australasian fur seal, South Australian fur seal, New Zealand fur seal, and Antipodean fur seal. Arctocephalus means "bear head" and the family name Otariidae comes from the Greek otarion meaning "little ear".

Found in Australian coastal waters and offshore islands of southern Australia, from the south-west of Western Australia to just east of Kangaroo Island in South Australia, and around southern Tasmania, New Zealand's South and Stewart Islands, and the nearer subantarctic islands. Happily, small populations are now found in Bass Strait and coastal waters of Victoria and New South Wales as far as the mid-north coast, and around the North Island, but these newer colonies are the result of recovery from their near extinction at the hands of humans.

Females can dive for about 9 minutes and to a depth of about 312 metres. Males can dive for about 15 minutes to a depth of about 380 metres. Their diet includes cephalopods, fish, and birds, including penguins at he southern end of their range. Known predators are killer whales, sharks, male New Zealand sea lions, and until recently humans. Unfortunately many still die in fishing nets, or are illegally killed by fishermen, and pups are very vulnerable to disturbance of the rookeries.

Puritutu Rock, New Plymouth, New Zealand

[thepinnipedparade]

South American fur seal (L) – The South American fur seal ranges from Peru to southern Brazil, with most of the population living in Uruguay and the Falkland Islands. Their diet varies greatly depending on where they live, but unlike most pinnipeds they prefer to hunt in groups. Unfortunately they like to live in many of the same areas as the South American sea lion. Male South American sea lions will steal fur seal pups and kill them if they can. Like the Galapagos fur seal, South American fur seals nurse their pups for a comparatively long time.

Subantarctic fur seal (R) – Their range is a long band across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans just above the Antarctic Circle (hence "Subantarctic"), though some far-travelers have settled in Tasmania. Both males and females have gray fur on their backs and orange/cream fur on their undersides. Because their preferred fish migrates close to the surface, they have one of the shallowest dive depths of any pinniped.

[sealsdaily]

tghis is what its all about.

he has too much power

[wonder-rooms]

Sea Lion, Our Living World, Vol. I (1885) - Rev. J.G. Wood

*Digitally restored by Molly Wilders, from scans uploaded to Biodiversity Heritage Library

[haveyouseenthisanimal-irl]

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: walrus

There are a lot of iconic arctic animals, such as the polar bear and narwhal, but my personal favorite is the walrus. Known for their large tusks, prominent whiskers, and habit for busting myths creepy eyes, walruses are unique amongst the pinnipeds. Most people know of the two main groups of pinnipeds: Phocidae, the earless or true seals and Otariidae, the fur seals and sea lions. Walruses however are in a class of their own, being the only surviving species of their own family: Odobenidae. A weird fact that I learned researching for this is that taxonoimists used to think Odobenids evolved from bears before later reclassifying them alongside the other pinnipeds. Old-timey taxonomy was wild and came up with some absolutely unhinged ideas. Like they used to think that microbats and megabats weren't related, instead classifying megabats as primates.

(image; a walrus sitting on an ice flow. It is a large, brown mammals with short limbs that end in flippers. Its head has a wide, blunt snout and two long tusks emerging from the upper jaw)

There is one species of walrus, Odobenus rosmarus, divided into two subspecies based on location: the Atlantic walrus (O. r. rosmarus) and Pacific walrus (O. r. divergens). The two subspecies are still very similar and genetic testing indicates they diverged between 750,000 and 500,000 years ago. There used to be a third listed subspecies from the Laptev sea, O. r. laptevi, but they have since been reclassified as a population of the Pacific walrus. Walruses are very large, being the third largest pinnipeds after the two elephant seal species. The Pacific subspecies is larger than their Atlantic brethren with most males reaching an average weight between 800 and 1,700 kg (1,800 to 3,700 lbs). A few males have been known to grow considerably larger than average. Male Atlantic walruses average about 900 kg (2,200 lbs). In both subspecies, females are about 2/3 the size of males and have shorter tusks. a large portion of their weight comes from the thick layer of blubber under their skin that helps them stay warm. Both subspecies have an average length between 2.2 and 3.6 meters (7.4 to 11.8 ft). Walruses have hind flippers that can turn forward to act like feet, letting them crawl on all fours like sea lions. Like true seals, they have no external ears. The skin is very thick and mostly bald. They are born with brown skin that becomes lighter as they age. While swimming, the blood vessels in the skin construct to reduce blood flow and limit heat loss, which makes them considerably lighter, almost white. Males have skin nodules called bossed around the neck and shoulders. Their creepy eyes are the result of eye sockets with no roof and powerful extraocular muscles that let the eyes protrude out of the skull and look both forward and sideways. The famous mustaches are composed of 400-700 thick whiskers. The whiskers are attached to muscles and have both nerve ending and blood supply. They are incredibly sensitive sense organs and a walrus can identify objects as small as 2mm with its whiskers. Their lips are muscular and flexible and aid in creating a large variety of noises.

(image: a close-up of a walrus's face, showing its prominent whiskers and small eyes. Its mouth is open, revealing its tongue)

How come the walrus can whistle but I can't? (video: a walrus in a zoo being instructed by its handler to make multiple vocalizations)

Of course the most famous features of walruses are their tusks. These two large canines can reach a meter in length and are larger in males than females. The tusks have a number of uses in both sexes, though males use them more. In both sexes, they are used to help dig breathing holes in sea ice, hang onto ice and help the walrus climb out of the water. Males also use their tusks in displays of dominance, especially during mating season. Larger tusks are a sign of dominance and typically the walrus with the largest tusks will win standoffs. If a standoff escalates from posturing to a fight, they will use their tusks as weapons. They tend to strike around the neck and shoulders and the skin nodules in those areas help protect males from each other's tusks. It was formerly believed that walruses would use their tusks to dig for prey on the sea floor, but this is no longer believed to be the case.

(image: a walrus skull showing the tusks)

(image: a walrus using its tusks to hang onto the ice and keep its nostrils above the water)

Walruses spend a lot of their time searching for the food they need to support a body that big. They prefer forging along the continental shelf and spend much more time in shallow water than other pinnipeds. While walruses have been tracked diving 500 meters deep, the majority of dives are much more shallow. The vast majority of a walrus's diet consists of seafloor-dwelling invertebrates including tubeworms, soft corals, tunicates, crabs and shrimp, sea cucumbers, and mollusks. While that's a wide palette, their absolute favorite food is clams. To hunt, walruses drag their noses and the forward surface of their tusks through the sediment and use their whiskers to search for food. This stirs up the sediment and releases nutrients back into the water column, a process balled bioturbation. Many foods can be swallowed whole or chewed, but they have a special feeding style for clams and other bivalves. Walruses will hold the bivalve in their mouths and use their flexible lips to form a water-tight seal around it. It then withdraws its tongue into its mouth to create enough suction to suck the bivalve meat right out of the shell. So important is this strategy to feeding that the shape of their mouths is specially adapted to it. Walruses are also known to feed on seals, though how much of that is due to hunting or scavenging is unknown. Additionally, they will scavenge whales, may hunt walrus trapped under sea ice, and have been seen catching and eating birds.

(image: a walrus foraging for food underwater. It has its snout pressed into the sea floor and is kicking up a large amount of sediment. Still from a National Geographic video)

Walruses are social and migratory, traveling south for the winter and north for the summer in aggregations that can be tens of thousands strong. They will haul out onto land or sea ice in huge numbers, blanketing the landscape in blubber and tusks. While these aggregations are preferred, they are not considered a true social species as they do not aid each other when together. Walruses on land or ice are skittish and will spook easily. Being startled can lead to stampedes while the walruses flee back to sea. Sometimes, walruses will be trampled to death during these stampedes. During mating season, the normally cordial walruses become much less friendly to their neighbors. Breeding seasons lasts from January to March. During this time, males will gather in the water around females in heat and compete for the change to get to that nice walrussy (I will not apologize). This is usually done via bellowing and posturing with the tusks, but may escalate to fights. While males become sexually mature around age 7, they often do not become large and strong enough to secure mates until around age 15. Females become sexually mature between 4 and 6 years old. Curiously, females enter heat twice per year, but males are only fertile once per year. Gestation takes up to 16 months and calves are born able to swim and weighing up to 75 kg (165 lbs). Females with calves move away from the large aggregations, possibly to keep their calves from being crushed in stampedes and possibly to make it harder for predators to detect their scent. Nursing lasts for over a year, longer than in many pinnipeds. Walrus milk is fattier than that of land mammals, but less fatty than that of true seals, forcing walrus mother to nurse longer. Even after being weaned, walruses may spend up to 5 years with their mothers. Females only mate at most every two years, which gives the walrus the lowest reproduction rate of all pinnipeds. Walruses can live up to 30 years in the wild and 40 years in captivity. Male walruses have the largest penis bone of any non-cetacean both in absolute size and proportionately.

(image an aerial shot of a walrus herd on land. There are many walruses and they are so tightly packed together that no ground is visible)

"Don't talk to me or my son ever again" (image: a mother walrus with its calf. The calf is a smaller version of the mother with no tusks. The calf is sittting by its mother's side. Both are looking at the camers)

Walruses have been hunted by humans living in the arctic circle for millennia. Hunting peaked in 18th and 19th centuries when there was a high commercial demand for meat, blubber, skin, and ivory. This almost led to the extirpation of Atlantic walruses. Since then, hunting has been outlawed except by indigenous peoples, allowing the populations to recover. Now, the major threat to walruses is climate change leading to loss of sea ice needed for hauling out and breeding. The IUCN lists both subspecies as Vulnerable. They were an important source of food and other materials to the peoples of the arctic circle and appear frequently in the mythology of said peoples.

(image: a walrus tusk carved with the images of multiple fish, seals, and polar bears)

[chaotic-archaeologist]

Hi! Sorry for the late response. This is the best picture I have, tomorrow I could get a new one with a scale. The bone is very small as you can see. I was suggested it could be a malleus bone, or it could be part of the shell of a gastropod.

And don't worry, I'd never send a picture of a human bone, but I know this bone isn't human, I work with human remains and I think I've seen the 206 (and more sometimes!) to know it could be from a faunal remain. Side note, we collected it from the South Pacific coast, the Camelidae and Otariidae family are the most common in the region that could fit the size if it turns out to be a malleus bone.

Please excuse my dirty hand and thank you for this 💕

Lia

Calling all zooarchaeologists! @wafflelovingbatgirl you got any idea what this little guy is?

-Reid

[sealsdaily]

Today's Seals Are: Well-Optimized

[snototter]

A Brown fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus) in Australia

by Cat Rayner

[rawcalamity]

Drifting atop sea ice bound to the northernmost regions of salrehk gathers a gregarious species who comfortably populate this gelid biome. Eisskippers are prolific pack hunters akin to the social otariidaes of our planet; sharing external ear structures, rotating hind flippers, and a similar body language. Rafts of eisskippers adhere to a matriarchal social structure where cows reign dominant over the bulls. As such, cows are substantially larger than bulls, requiring excess body fat to foster pups while also establishing dominance over inferior males. A coating of thick hydrodynamic pelage covers the eisskippers lithe physique, promoting swift, graceful swimming beneath the frigid seas. Eisskippers adorn natural brown pigments with a striking red stripe that traces the frontal plane. Bulls develop a dark dorsal sattle, allowing them to be easily distinguished from the cows. An eisskippers pelage darkens with each molt as it ages. Eisskippers tactfully weaponize their red stripe pattern to disorientate predators. By hunting in large packs, eisskippers will deploy a hunting tactic which involves individual members of a pack circling predators in a coordinated attack. Utilizing their sharp dewclaws, eisskippers will inflict lacerations onto their prey until the animal eventually tires out and succumbs to their wounds. In short bursts an eisskippers can reach speeds of up to 23 mph, rendering them difficult to catch underwater.

Eisskippers do not discriminate when hunting; these skilled predators will herd schools of fish using their broad tails, only to then take turns whipping their prey with an elastic mucus-coated tongue. Eisskippers possess a secondary tongue which is thin and narrow, measuring at roughly 6 feet in length. When retracted, this enormous tongue wraps around the skull of the eisskipper. Their primary tongue functions similarly to a mammalians tongue, and is used to both taste and groom. Eisskippers spend 20 - 30 minutes underwater hunting before needing to resurface for oxygen. It is speculated that eisskippers could spend several hours submerged thanks to their oxygen reserves, which are stored in their blood and muscles like terrestrial marine mammals. Furthermore, eisskippers can manually adjust their heartbeat to maximize oxygen efficiency. Like icepicks, eisskippers hook their long dewclaws into sea ice to haul their body out of the water. Eisskippers are remarkably intelligent animals, displaying high cognitive prowess. These animals adapt through observational learning; picking up on beneficial behaviors via witnessing it from other animal species. Eisskipper populations are diverse as well, harboring unique languages and behaviors found throughout arctic-113.

[thepinnipedparade]

Brown fur seal (L) – also called the Cape fur seal, South African fur seal, or Australian fur seal this otariid lives on the southern coast of Australia and on the southern and southwestern coast of Africa. Described as "the largest and most robust" fur seal, these big bois (and girls) have been observed attacking and killing sharks. They prefer to live on rocky beaches, and like many pinnipeds the pups have a unique cry that lets their mothers find them even on a crowded breeding site.

Galapagos fur seal (R) – native to the Galapagos Islands (need I say?), the Galapagos fur seal is the smallest otariid and has the least sexual dimorphism of all the fur seals. They also have the lowest reproductive rate, nursing their pups for up to three years. Some Galapagos fur seal mothers even nurse two pups at a time! Despite having been legally protected in Ecuador since 1934, they are listed as an endangered species on the IUCN Red List.

[beautifulelephantsealsunrise]

hi what is a seal

this is actually a great question! a true seal, or earless seal, belongs to a group of marine mammals known as pinnipeds, which is Latin for "flipper-footed!" there are three families in the Pinnipedia order: Odobenodae (walruses), Otariidae (sea lions and fur seals) and Phocidae (true seals).

true seals are often confused with sea lions or fur seals, but there are actually several traits that make them unique! take a look at these photos of a harbor seal (left) and a California sea lion (right). what differences do you notice?

one of the biggest noticeable differences between seals and sea lions is the ears. sea lions have external ears, whereas seals just have an ear hole, which can sometimes be difficult to spot. here's a closer look:

another big difference is their flippers! sea lions have longer front flippers than seals, and can also rotate their hind flippers and walk on them! seals can't do this, so on land they move in an ungainly, caterpillar-like motion called galumphing. this video of a seal release from the Cornish Seal Sanctuary will give you a good idea of what seals look like when they galumph.

kind of funny, right? don't let them fool you, though -- they can move pretty fast when they want to! these elephant seal bulls are galumphing so fast that their long noses (called proboscises) almost get in the way.

there are nearly 20 species of true seals, ranging in size from around 3.5 feet long (baikal seal) to 20 feet long (southern elephant seal). the largest seal on record was a southern elephant seal that was measured at 22.5 feet in 1913. (side note: if you have some spare time and a tape measure, and like me, you have trouble conceptualizing exactly how big this is, try measuring it out! i was a little terrified to find that this seal would have stretched from my apartment bedroom nearly all the way to the kitchen).

in conclusion, a seal is a strange and wonderful type of creature. seals are distinct from sea lions, and each species of seal is incredibly diverse and weird in its own way! here are a couple photos of these majestic beasts:

(images: baikal seal, hooded seal, grey seal, weddell seal, northern elephant seal, bearded seal)