Sakura

Today I'm going to do my blog on two of my favorite marine creatures - seals and sea lions. I worked with these guys over the Summer at the zoo so I got a lot of hands-on experience dealing with both. Much like the Sunfish from my previous blog entry, I can also say these guys are complete silly little dorks too. Seals make the most hilarious faces and sea lions have personalities that are as giant as they are. A lot of people confuse them for each other and it's easy to do so, since they are usually housed together at the zoo. Hopefully after this blog you'll be able to identify who is who the next time you see them~! First off, I'll start with a few differences between seals and sea lions: If you see them in a zoo encloser, they are probably swimming. One way to tell who is who is seals swim by using their back flippers in a side to side motion, and sea lions tend to use their large front flippers. When you look at their heads, you'll notice that sea lions have visible external ear flaps, whereas a seal just has tiny holes where their ears are. Sea lions have much longer necks compared to seals and they often sit upright, and a seal will usually lay flat and scoot around on land. Size-wise there is a pretty big difference. Sea lions are up to 10 feet long, weighing up to 1,000 pounds, and seals are around 5-8 feet long and only weigh up to 300 - 400 pounds usually. If you see one "barking" and making a lot of loud noises, chances are you're looking at a sea lion as seals tend to be quieter and make softer grunts. So in summary > If it's screaming at you, has ear flaps, and it's walking on land, you're probably looking at a sea lion, and if it's being quiet like a ninja, earless, and flopping around on land, odds are it's a seal. Here is a good chart to use when comparing: And now for a real picture, you can immediately spot some of the differences, noticing the "hole" on the seals head for ears compared to the obvious flapped ears of the sea lion. The flippers also make it very obvious which is which, with the sea lion having those large and outward facing flippers. Also this picture makes it very easy to note the difference in how their necks look, with the sea lions being much longer. I'll leave you with a few fun facts about seals and sea lions. Seals can sleep underwater and can surface for air without waking up. Seal pups are born very fluffy with white fur, and later shed it. Sea lions are highly intelligent and can solve problems, recognize patterns, learn tricks, and remember commands. A seals whiskers are able to detect even the smallest of water movements, allowing it to hunt fish in dark or murky waters. Male sea lions are known to be extremely aggressive and get much larger than the female sea lion. During mating season they become extremely territorial. A seal can reach speeds of up to 15-20 miles per hour and a sea lion can reach speeds of up to 25. Sea lions have been known to dive as deep as 600 feet. Seal moms and pups find each other in seal colonies through sound alone and are able to identify each other's individual "voices". I hope you enjoyed this, and I'll see you tomorrow with more fish

Thanks guys about to write the next one ~ Going to do seals.

I've only watched season 1 before, so I felt like I needed to get on with watching the rest lol

AND HE'S WEARING HIS HALLOWEEN COSTUME~!

I want to try more of those sunflowers too ~ Mine actually got pretty big but they got too tall and started falling over and breaking

It felt like Spring today .-. I think it was close to like 70 @.@

B o r e d Going to go write my next fish blog lol

Hey ~ and welcome to Anime Forums ^^ Enjoy your stay and I hope you have some fun times here.

There's nothing on or in his mind, he's just weird and says whatever lol ~ @Jellal Oh ya I should def do the seals, I learned a lot working with them over this past Summer. Thanks @Animedragon, @Kari, and @Sasuke @Zariel Yeah same I can't do weird textures like that, crunchy textures or slimy textures are a huge no for me.

I just wanna try it for the funsies mostly ~

Picking back up where I left off with Konosuba.

Thanks all <3~ Working on something new again tonight XD

Trying to read subs and not watching any of the show lol

845

@LaEspoir In a lot of Asian countries they are considered a delicacy tbh, but they are banned in a lot of European countries because of toxins they contain and health concerns with eating them. They are suppose to have a really tough texture in parts and jelly-like texture in other parts so.. not sure I really want to eat one because it doesn't sound that good ~ @Eris OI You aight though u_U glad you liked it. @Zariel Thanks~! and yeah, don't let one land on you, and prolly don't eat it lol

New sigglet ~ Had some help from my dad so that was nice

When DOESN'T he?

Right, he's literally wearing a signature I made him *sigh*

Thanks~! It was fun to write and gave me something to do lol but YES they are huge guys, I think most people think sunfish are smaller, and the unrelated freshwater species are, but the ocean doods get much bigger, as most things in the ocean do lol

Recently I was talking a lot of fish talk with @Kazuma Satou and @Zariel and it gave me an idea for some new blog entries. I haven't updated my blog in awhile, and I've pretty much done all blog entries of photography I've taken, so this is a new one for me. Since I'm studying fish and working towards a PhD in Marine Sciences, I thought it would be fun to do several entries focused on fishy friends and fun fishy facts It won't be all fish, I'll also focus on different types of marine life as well. I want to try to do one entry a day this week, mostly to brush up on facts myself and this helps with my studies too so it's win/win. Maybe someone can learn something too or at least be entertained for a few minutes Today I will talk about the almighty Mola Mola, otherwise known as a sunfish. These are my absolute favorite fish simply because they look so dorky and are silly little guys (I like my fish how I like my men, what can I say? LOL). If you've never seen one, they look like someone didn't know what a fish looked like and tried to draw one: A few quick facts about the Ocean Sunfish: They weigh between 250 - 1,000 KG (or 545 - 2,200 pounds). They can be up to 1.8m long (around 5ft 10 inches), and specimens up to 3.3m (10ft, 10 inches) tall have been recorded from fin-to-fin height. The largest one on record was records in New Zealand and weighed 2,300 KG (5,100 pounds). Sunfish are not wide and have virtually no width and are a flat fish. It recieved its name because it likes to sunbathe on top of the water and is commonly seen floating around at the surface of the water. In German, it is also referred to as Schwimmender Kopf, or "swimming head", and in Polish, it is named samogłów, meaning "head alone", because it has no true tail. The earliest known fossils of the sunfish date back to the Holocene period, around 11,700 years ago. There is a freshwater version of sunfish but it is not related to the Mola Mola and is part of the Centrarchidae family. The Sunfish shares a lot of characteristics with the Puffer fish and was originally mistakenly classified as part of the Puffer fish family. Likely due to the fact they have beaks to eat with instead of teeth like a Puffer fish. It was believed in early research that Sunfish just drift along with the ocean current to travel, but recently species have been recorded traveling 26 KM (16 miles) in a day and actively hunting at 200m (650 ft) and below and they can go as fast as 3.2km an hour (1.9 miles an hour). A sunfishes main predators are Seals, Sea Lions, Sharks, and Killer Whales. Not a lot is yet known about Sunfish because they haven't been researched extensively, and we are only recently discovering more about their mating, eating, and migration patterns. There was a lot of misinformation about them up until recent years as well. For example, their diet was once thought to consist mainly of jellyfish and Gelatinous Zooplankton, but in recent years it's been determined they consume mostly Flounder, Eel, and Squid. As for their lifespan, we still don't even know that because it's not yet been documented in their natural habitat, though it's believed they may be able to live around 25 years. Another type of Sunfish is the Giant Sunfish, which is slightly different to the Mola Molas, although they are in the same family. These are considered to be the largest bony fish and weight up to 2,700 kilograms (6,000 lb) and is usually 3.3 m (11 feet). They are easily distinguishable from Mola Molas as they are much wider and have bumpy bodies: Sunfish pose no harm to humans and are often docile so if you find yourself diving next to one, you don't need to worry as they will likely ignore you, and you can probably get a really cool picture next to a HUGE fish~! I'm thinking tomorrow's entry I might do crabs, but if you have suggestions let me know in the comments~

What are you even on about now

REEEEE Yea that's what I needed, no clue wot I'm doin lol

YASSS THAT!~ I couldn't remember what it's called lmao, but I need to put one of those nets on my boat, I still haven't yet and I dunno how to do it because I haven't tried it yet

NOTHING IS THAT BAD Tbh I really want to do that fishing thing, the net fishing, I haven't done it yet lol