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Marine mammal facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Humpback Whale underwater shot
Humpback whale

Marine mammals are mammals that depend on the ocean and other marine ecosystems to live. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears.

Cetaceans are fully aquatic. Seals and sea-lions are semiaquatic. They spend the most of their time in the water but need to return to land to mate, breed and molt. Some marine mammals eat zooplankton, others eat fish, squid, shellfish, or sea grass, and a few eat other mammals.

Images for kids

  • A furry, streamlined mammal swimming through the water with toes visible on each foot, similar to those of an elephant. All limbs are thrust backwards or underneath the animal.

    Illustration of †Prorastomus, an early sirenian (40 mya)

  • Predicted patterns of marine mammal species richness

    Marine mammal species richness: A) All species (n = 115), B) toothed whales (n = 69), C) baleen whales (n = 14), D) seals (n = 32), based on data from 1990 to 1999

  • A sea otter floating on the water on its back holding a sea urchin with one hand and a rock in the other

    Sea otters have dexterous hands which they use to smash sea urchins off rocks.

  • A dugong with its mouth on the sandy seafloor, leaving a noticeable cloud which hovers near the bottom. There are two yellow fish with black stripes near its mouth, and there are grasses poking out of the seafloor

    A dugong feeding on the sea-floor

  • Alaskan sea otters inhabit most of the Aleutian Islands and the Pacific Northwest, Asian sea otters inhabit the islands around Kamchatka Peninsula and those that stretch between there and Japan (excluding in the Sea of Okhosk) and California sea otters inhabit the coast of southern California. Their former range follows the coast of southern California north, into the Aleutian Islands, without any gaps in between.

    Historical and modern range of northern sea otters

  • Japan Factory Ship Nisshin Maru Whaling Mother and Calf

    An adult and sub-adult Minke whale are dragged aboard the Nisshin Maru, a Japanese whaling vessel

  • The whale meat is dark purple and shredded like jerky, the blubber is a pale-pink color and in slices, the dried fish is a light-brown color and ripped into slices, and the potatoes are light-yellow and cut into thin slices.

    Pilot whale meat (bottom), blubber (middle) and dried fish (left) with potatoes, Faroe Islands

  • A grey sea lion with white whiskers balancing a ball that resembles a blue-and-red basketball

    A sea lion trained to balance a ball on its nose

  • A bottlenose dolphin jumping out of the water (the entire body is visible) in front of a trainer in camouflage. The dolphin is wearing a small, cylindrical camera on its right fin

    A dolphin wearing a locating pinger, performing mine clearance work in the Iraq War

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Marine mammal Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.