🐾 Sea Lion

Sea Lion

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Who it is

• Scientific name: Family Otariidae
• Family & relatives: Sea lions are eared seals in the family Otariidae, related to fur seals and more distantly to walruses.
• How to spot it: Known for their small external ear flaps, long front flippers, and doglike whiskered faces.

Its body & abilities

• Size: Depending on the species, adults range from about 2 to 3 meters long, with males much larger than females.
• Weight: Big males can weigh from a few hundred kilograms up to about 1,000 kilograms in the largest species.
• Body & adaptations: They have a streamlined body, powerful front flippers for swimming, and a thick neck, often with a mane in males.
• Top speed: They are fast, agile swimmers that can reach around 40 kilometers per hour in bursts.
• Strength: They swim by flapping their large front flippers like wings, making them acrobatic in the water.
• Senses: They have keen underwater vision and sensitive whiskers that detect moving prey.
• Growing up: Pups are born on land, nurse for months to a year, and learn to swim and hunt from their mothers.

Where it lives

• Habitat: They live along coasts, resting on beaches and rocks and feeding in nearby waters.
• Where in the world: Found along coasts of the Pacific, the southern oceans, and around South America and Australia.
• Territory: During breeding, males defend patches of beach where females gather to have pups.

What it eats

• Diet: They are carnivores that eat fish, squid, and octopus.
• Favorite foods: Favorites include schooling fish like anchovies and sardines, plus squid.
• How it hunts: They chase prey underwater in fast, twisting pursuits, sometimes hunting together.

How it behaves

• How it moves: In water they row with their front flippers, and on land they walk on all four flippers.
• When it is active: They alternate between feeding trips at sea and long rests hauled out on shore.
• Family life: They are very social and gather in large, noisy colonies to rest and breed.
• How it talks: They bark, growl, and roar loudly, and mothers and pups find each other by voice.
• Babies: Females usually give birth to a single pup each year in crowded breeding colonies.

Its place in nature

• Role in nature: As mid-level predators they help balance fish populations and are prey for sharks and orcas.
• Conservation: Most sea lion species are of Least Concern, though a few, like the Galapagos sea lion, are Endangered.
• Dangers: Their main predators are sharks and orcas, and pups can be lost to storms and disease.

Life & legacy

• How long it lives: They typically live 20 to 30 years in the wild.
• In our culture: Playful and smart, they are the classic performing seals seen at zoos and marine shows.
• Where to see it: People see them at San Francisco's Pier 39, in the Galapagos, and along the coast of Baja California in Mexico.
• Fun fact: Sea lions can be trained to balance balls and clap, which is why they star in ocean shows.