The catalog

Every predator profile

33 ocean hunters, from reef ambushers to deep-sea giants. Filter by group, ocean, habitat, prey or conservation status, then open any profile for the full account.

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Seals, Sea Lions & Walruses A California sea lion gliding through sunlit blue-green water above a kelp bed, its long foreflippers spread and its whiskers and large dark eyes clearly visible.

California Sea Lion

Zalophus californianus

An agile eastern Pacific eared seal that swims with its foreflippers, walks on all four limbs ashore, and has recovered to several hundred thousand animals.

Length 4.9–7.9 ft Least Concern
Seals, Sea Lions & Walruses A leopard seal turning through cold blue Antarctic water beneath a pale ice floe, its long spotted body and wide head angled toward the camera with the mouth slightly open.

Leopard Seal

Hydrurga leptonyx

The only seal that routinely hunts warm-blooded prey, patrolling Antarctic pack ice for penguins and young seals while also filtering krill through lobed teeth.

Length 7.9–11 ft Least Concern
Seals, Sea Lions & Walruses An enormous southern elephant seal bull on a grey sub-Antarctic beach, head raised and inflated proboscis hanging over its open mouth, with scarred folds of skin across its chest.

Southern Elephant Seal

Mirounga leonina

The largest seal on Earth and the most extreme diver among them, with bulls several times the mass of females and dives that pass a mile below the surface.

Length 8.5–20 ft Least Concern
Seals, Sea Lions & Walruses A large male Steller sea lion on a wave-washed rocky haulout in the North Pacific, its thick pale mane and broad muzzle raised as it roars, with surf breaking behind it.

Steller Sea Lion

Eumetopias jubatus

The largest of the sea lions, a heavy-maned North Pacific hunter whose western population collapsed by around eighty percent for reasons still argued over.

Length 7.5–11 ft Near Threatened
Seals, Sea Lions & Walruses A walrus resting at the edge of an Arctic ice floe, its long pale tusks and dense bristly whiskers prominent against deeply wrinkled reddish-brown hide.

Walrus

Odobenus rosmarus

An Arctic bottom-feeder that finds clams in darkness with a muzzle full of whiskers and pulls them from the shell by suction, not with its famous tusks.

Length 7.2–12 ft Vulnerable