Northern fur seal
Amazing fact
Northern fur seal mothers recognize their own pups by their distinctive calls.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Northern fur seal mothers recognize their own pups by their distinctive calls.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Northern fur seal
- Scientific name
- Callorhinus ursinus
- Japanese name
- キタオットセイ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Mammalia
- Order
- Carnivora
- Family
- Otariidae
- Genus
- Callorhinus
It lives in the North Pacific, the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, and comes south to the seas near Japan in winter.
Its whole body is covered with thick, fine fur. Its strong front flippers let it walk and even run on land.
Except in the breeding season, it hardly ever comes ashore. It stays at sea and eats many kinds of fish and squid.
How the Northern fur seal lives
They tend to feed at night, when their prey rises into the upper layers of the sea. They can often be seen drifting on the surface of the sea. During the winter feeding season, they usually spend time apart from others. In the summer breeding season, they gather in colonies.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- Total length: males up to 210 cm, females about 150 cm
- Weight
- males up to 270 kg, females about 50 kg
- Range
- North Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, and Sea of Okhotsk
Where the Northern fur seal has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- キタオットセイ
- 简体中文
- 海狗
- 繁體中文
- 海狗
- 한국어
- 북방물개
- Español
- Oso marino ártico
- Français
- Otarie à fourrure du Nord
- Deutsch
- Nördlicher Seebär
- Português (Brasil)
- Urso-do-mar
- Italiano
- Callorino dell'Alaska
- العربية
- فقمة الفراء الشمالي
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Anjing laut bulu utara
- Русский
- Северный морской котик
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- アクアマリンふくしま — キタオットセイChecked: 2026-11-03
- NOAA Fisheries — Northern fur sealChecked: 2026-11-03
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Callorhinus ursinusChecked: 2026-11-03
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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