Why do baby seals have fur when they are born?
The Antarctic is pretty cold. On Bird Island which is the warmest UK base in the Antarctic – fur seals are born in temperatures of below zero. They need this fur to help keep them warm. Sometimes when it rains I think even the fur doesn’t help them that much though as they can look very wet and cold! How fast can a grown up seal move on land? Pretty fast – a fur seal (which is like a sea lion and can tuck its hind flippers underneath it) can probably go faster than you over 10 metres or so. They tend not to run much further than this without stopping. True seals (which can’t tuck their hind flippers under them) can’t go so fast, but elephant seals have a funny wriggle like a caterpillar (called a metachronal rhythm). What do penguins and seals eat and how do they get their food? Mainly they eat krill, and they have to swim for their supper. They both swim out from Bird Island – the seals go about 100 km out – to get their krill. What is the largest seal you have ever seen? Definitely a
