The Pinniped Post

A few months ago, I published a post about how Harbor Seals use their vibrasse (whiskers) to find delicious and nutritious fibsh .  One of the things that I read about Harbor Seal vibrasse was that they are wavy.  After looking over photos from a recent trip to the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, I noticed that in one of the photos you can see the wavyness of their vibrasse: Closeup of a Harbor Seal's wavy vibrasse, with arrows pointing to some of the more noticeable wavy whiskers. Original photo of a Harbor Seal snooter. From my post linked to above, showing different pinniped vibrasse samples.  Note that the Harbor Seal vibrasse are wavy. I am not sure exactly why the vibrasse are wavy.  I have read that the wavyness may help Harbor Seals find fibsh by reducing unnecessary vibrations while they swim through the water.  I have also read that this has not yet been totally proven. Perhaps I should ask Harry the Harbor Seal

Minazo, possibly the only Southern Elephant Seal to both be a meme ( "lolrus" ) and have a "Japanese Noise" album dedicated to him. Photo from his Japanese Wikipedia page . I've always wondered what the differences are between the Northern and Southern Elephant Seals. At first I thought that both types of seals were generally the same except for what part of the world they lived in.  Northern Elephant Seals live in the Northern Hemisphere, and Southern Elephant Seals live in the Southern Hemisphere.  But when I did more research, I found that there are a few other differences than just what part of the world they live in. Elephant Seals are bigger than you might think.  This is a still from a good BBC segment on Elephant Seals One big difference between the two types of Elephant Seals is the size of their noses.  While all male Elephant Seals have big noses compared to other pinnipeds, the Southern Elephant Seal has a bigger nose (40 cm)  than the Northern Ele...