March 13th: International Day of the Seal

International Day of the Seal was created in 1982 to raise awareness of the animals. So here are 10 things you may not know about seals.

1. The closest living relatives to the seal family are bears and musteloids (weasels, otters and badgers).
2. Seals belong to the category of animals known as pinnipeds. There are 3 different families in the pinnipeds group: phocidae (true seals), otaridae (fur seals and sea lions) and odobenidae, which contains just one species - the walrus.
3. The smallest species of seal is the Baikal seal, about 1m (3 ft 3 in) long and weighing45 kg (99 lb) and the largest is the southern elephant seal which measures 5m (16 ft) and weighs 3,200 kg (7,100 lb).
4. A seal's whiskers are highly sensitive, allowing them to detect vibrations in the water, so they can forage and hunt underwater in the dark.
5. Before diving, a seal will exhale and empty its lungs of half the air. On deeper dives, they can deflate their lungs completely.
6. Seals have been known to dive as deep as 4,100 metres (13,450 feet) and can remain submerged for up to an hour.
7. As they spend a lot of time at sea, seals are able to sleep in the water. They can sleep for several minutes in the water, although half their brains are still alert and on the look out for predators. Both sides of the brain go to sleep when the seal sleeps on land.
8. Seals can make a wide range of noises including barks, grunts, rasps, rattles, growls, creaks, warbles, trills, chirps, chugs, clicks and whistles. Some of the sounds they make are ultra- or infrasonic, meaning humans cannot hear them.
9. Ancient Greek coins had seal heads on them. The Greeks believed seals were protected by both Apollo and Poseidon, because they lived in the sea and in the land.
10. In Celtic mythology, there are creatures which live in the sea as seals and also on land as humans. These are the selkies. Male selkies are very handsome in their human form, and very desirable to human women. They will seduce women who are dissatisfied with their lives and husbands - in order to attract one, a woman should shed seven tears into the sea. If a human male wants to marry a female selkie, he must steal her skin and hide it. Although she will long for the sea, she can only return when she finds her skin. They will be excellent wives and mothers, but as soon as she finds her seal skin, she will return to the sea without so much as a backward glance at her husband. In some legends, she will return to visit her children; in others, she will drag her husband to the sea with her so that he drowns. Other legends hold that selkies are formed from the souls of people drowned at sea.