You may not know that our seals and sea lions have nails. We don’t call them fingernails, or toenails, or even flipper nails. Just nails. And each species of marine mammal here at the Aquarium use their nails for different purposes.

Ursula grooming her fur

In fur seals, their toenails are exposed about halfway down their hind flippers. That is where their toe bones end. Their flippers continue past the nail with long flexible cartilage. The toes, nails, and extensive cartilage is necessary for reaching all the fur on their backs for grooming. We don’t have to clip the fur seals’ nails because they never get too long. That’s most likely from them grooming so often. Fur seals must groom their fur for hours each day in order to maintain their coats. They are, in fact, the second furriest animals on the planet (behind sea otters) and they rely on those dense coats to keep them warm.

A close-up of the short nails on Ursula's hind flipper

Sea lion scratching

The sea lions also have nails on their hind flippers. But they don’t have the lush fur coats in need of constant grooming like their neighbors in the Marine Mammal Center. Rather, they mostly use their nails for scratching — especially those hard-to-reach spots on their chins or backs.

Regular dog nail trimmers help trainers trim the harbor seal's nails