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Harbor Seal — printable fact sheet
Free to print or save as PDF. Great for classrooms, homeschooling, and young explorers.
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Harbor Seal
Phoca vitulina
Phoca vitulina is the most widely distributed pinniped in the northern hemisphere, and its hunting depends on an organ most people never think about: the whiskers. Harbour seal vibrissae are not smooth cylinders but wavy, undulating in a precise repeating pattern along their len…
Did you know?
- Despite their clumsy appearance on land, harbor seals are incredibly agile swimmers, reaching speeds up to 19 km/h underwater.
- The wavy whisker geometry has been copied by engineers designing low-drag, low-noise sensors and even turbine blades. Harbour seals sleep underwater, drifting in a vertical "bottling" posture with just the nose exposed, or resting on the seabed and surfacing without fully waking. Individual seals are identifiable for life by the unique spot pattern on their coat, which is why long-term population studies rely on photo-identification.
What I learned
Draw the harbor seal
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