Reader Joe Dickinson has some nice Sunday pinnipeds for us. His notes:
Walking recently at Seacliff State Beach, CA, I encountered a California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) doing the same, providing nice views of two features that distinguish sea lions (and fur “seals”) from true seals: an external ear flap and the ability to rotate the hind flippers under the body to achieve a respectable quadrupedal gait. [JAC: Remember that, as there will be a quiz. One way I remember is that “sea lion” has more words than “seal,” and sea lions have that extra bit as well: the external ear flap.]
So I dug through my archives to find a few of my favorite pinnipeds. First, a member of the same species seen underwater in the Sea of Cortez.
Then some members of the closely related Galapagos sea lion (Z. vollebaeki) with a bonus marine iguana.
Representing the true seals for comparison, we have some common harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in Alaska and from down the coast at Moss Landing.
Finally, some northern elephant seals (Miraunga angustirostris) from central California near Cambria. There is a young male looking very fine after just molting.
An amorous older male looking somewhat resigned as the little lady snarls at him and, adding insulter to injury, her pup kicks sand in the old boy’s face.
JAC: I love this next photo—what an indignity!
Last photo: talk about 99 lb weaklings:-)
What a great assortment of pinnipeds. Thanks for the info. on the sea-lion’s flippers; I never knew about that. I was born in San Jose, CA, and have many relatives in Santa Cruz, so I’ve spent many hours on California beaches where many of the pinnipeds shown here are common. Thanks for bringing back fond memories. I remember hearing (reading?) that their closest terrestrial relatives are bears. They remind me of d*gs, and Korean for seal is “water-dog”. Just some strange tidbits of info swimming in my noggin.
In Spanish they are “sea wolves”.
I want to hug those pinnipedes! They have a hugging shape. Sadly, they smell and can hurt you.
The harbor seals basking in the sun have noticeably happier expressions on their faces than that poor sucker on the ice floe.
Spelling: Elephant Seals are Mirounga.
The genus was named by John Edward Gray, curator at the British Museum, in 1827 (the species were already known to Linnaeus, who had them in Phoca). I admire a lot of Gray’s generic names, which are often not derived from Latin or any other language but sound like they almost could be; a lot of Australian reptiles rejoice in euphonious Gray names. Unusually for Gray, this is supposed to be one of the earliest cases of zoological names derived from an Australian aboriginal language rather than just made up, though I don’t know an original source for that claim. Gray must have subsequently decided that the sequence of vowels was too barbarous and changed the name to Morunga (see e.g. here), which is much more typical of the kind of word he liked to use (cf. Delma, Morelia, Tiliqua to mention a few), but of course that was an an invalid emendation and his original spelling stands.
These wonderful photos get my seal of approval!
What a wonderful passel of pinnipeds! I especially love the last Elephant Seal family sequence!