Gary Folley, age 9, of High Point, North Carolina, for his question:
What is a ribbon seal?
If you were an Eskimo of the frozen north, you would need a comfortable outfit of warm and weather proof clothing. You would choose pelts of seal or walrus, wolverine or polar bar. If you wanted something with added attraction, you might go hunting for a ribbon seal.
The place to hunt for the ribbon seal is where North America blends with the cold northern Arctic. You may find him in the Bering Sea or around the foggy Aleutian Islands or off the rocky isles along the shores of Alaska. And when you find him you cannot mis¬take him for any other animal in the world. No, the ribbon seal is not bedecked with rows and bows of dainty ribbons. But his coat is marked with bands that look for all the world like eye catching bands of ribbon.
His basic color is chocolate brown. His ribbons are the color of bright yellow marigolds. The contrast of his color scheme is outstanding. But the neat, well designed arrange¬ment of his ribbons is even more outstanding. He wears one of them around his neck as a necklace. Two others are bracelets, one around each front flipper where the arm joins his chubby body. And naturally the well dressed fellow wears a belt. This last ribbon is worn below his fat tummy, just above his tail fin. All his bright yellow ribbons are of the same smooth width.
The ribbon seal is a sort of distant cousin to the sea lion of the circus. His close relatives are the family of earless seals that have no outside ears. His stiff, hairy coat is very different from the furry seals. He also is more fitted for life in the water. The back flippers of a hair seal are ideal for swimming, but they are attached to his body in such a way that he cannot use them at all for getting about on land, and he is as clumsy as a fish out of water.
The circus sea lion and his eared seal relatives wear dark fur coats and sun themselves on dark, rocky shores. The ribbon seal and his hairy kinfolk tend to wear more snappy colors, with spots or circles, bands or blotches of eye-catching color. One wears a stiff beard and several can puff up their noses or cheeks like balloons. The giant of the clan is the 18 foot elephant seal who may weigh more than two tons. His huge nose is an inflatable, elephant type trunk.
The pelts of the hair seals are not as warm and furry as those of the eared seals. But Eskimos, like everyone else, enjoy adding a bit of color to their outfits. The hooded seal wears bright spots and the ringed seal is dotted with white circles; the leopard seal is blotched with black and the harp seal wears a dark saddle. All their pelts make attrac¬tive belts and boots. But the most handsome Eskimo accessories are made from the ribbon seal.
On land, the clumsy hair seals are at the mercy of hungry polar bears. In the water, they can, as a rule, out swim the shark and the greedy grampus. They must surface to breathe, but they solved this problem ages ago. They can stay below 20 minutes or more. Hair seals even sleep in the water and float up for a breath of air without even waking. Most of them come on land only once each year to bear their young.