the ribbon seals most defining feature, their stripes, take 4 years to develop!
here is a short timeline of their development 🦭
adorable white coat ribbon seal pups. this baby fur is called lanugo.
after around 1 month pups will start shedding their baby fur to reveal a grey and silver coat
young seals with their grey and silver coat
then, the juvenile seals with start to develop their stripes over the next 3 years. they grow stronger with each moult, females can reach sexual maturity before they have fully developed stripes. this mothers stripes aren’t fully there yet.
once they’re 4 years old a ribbon seals stripes will have fully developed.
male and female are easy to tell apart by their coat colour, the males will have bold black and white stripes
whereas the females have more brown/beige/silver stripes
Specially evolved for sieving krill & small crustaceans out of the seawater! These highly adapted seals are the most abundant species of pinniped on the planet.
As pups, Elephant seals are very curious of their surroundings and often go up to investigate photographers (who aren’t allowed to touch them and instead have to sit there getting poked and crawled on by these very large babies)
the ribbon seals most defining feature, their stripes, take 4 years to develop!
here is a short timeline of their development 🦭
adorable white coat ribbon seal pups. this baby fur is called lanugo.
after around 1 month pups will start shedding their baby fur to reveal a grey and silver coat
young seals with their grey and silver coat
then, the juvenile seals with start to develop their stripes over the next 3 years. they grow stronger with each moult, females can reach sexual maturity before they have fully developed stripes. this mothers stripes aren’t fully there yet.
once they’re 4 years old a ribbon seals stripes will have fully developed.
male and female are easy to tell apart by their coat colour, the males will have bold black and white stripes
whereas the females have more brown/beige/silver stripes
You know what time it is. It's our fourth year running, and we've got lots of cool stuff for you this year!
First, to get comfortable with our nominees go check out or Pinnepedia: a permanent index of all our current contestants!
Additionally, we've now got Category Voting to keep things fresh and keep one specific seal (you know who you are, concrete eater) from sweeping multiple years in a row. You can now vote in all kinds of areas like...
Silliest Seal
Best Girl
Best Boy
Best Newcomer
Best Super Senior
Best Vintage Sealebrities
And Best Seal Subspecies!
And for those who liked our previous style, we didn't forget you...
We've got a free-for-all vote!
Now get out there and galumph to the polls!