--- title: Sea lions, seals and otters — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Sea lions, seals and otters», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A sea lion claps its flippers and walks up the rocks on all four, while a harbour seal next door wriggles on its belly and floats upright asle --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Sea lions, seals and otters # Sea lions, seals and otters Lesson 100 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/0/) — A sea lion claps its flippers and walks up the rocks on all four, while a harbour seal next door wriggles on its belly and floats upright asleep like a bottle in the water. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/1/) — The quickest way to tell them apart is to count and look: a sea lion has small ear flaps and can turn its back flippers forward, a true seal has only ear holes and cannot. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/2/) — Their senses are tuned for the sea: a seal's whiskers feel the swirling trail left by a fish, so it can follow a fish it cannot even see. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/3/) — Sea otters float on their backs, crack shells on stones and hold paws while they sleep, and by eating sea urchins they keep whole kelp forests alive. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/4/) — A seal pup alone on a beach is usually not lost: its mother may be fishing nearby, so the right thing is to keep away and call a rescue group. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/5/) — Sea lions can walk on all four flippers by turning their back flippers forward and have small ear flaps; true seals, like the harbour seal, have no ear flaps and wriggle on land. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/6/) — Sea lions often squabble loudly over the best resting spots on the rocks. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/7/) — Trainers use a whistle to say «yes, that's right» at the exact moment, then give a fish, so sea lions learn to open their mouths and lie still for vet checks without sleep medicine. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/8/) — Many zoos have stopped tricks like ball balancing and show natural behaviour instead. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/9/) — Seals can sleep floating upright with their noses up, hold their breath for many minutes and close their nostrils tightly when they dive. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/10/) — A seal's whiskers feel tiny movements in the water, and in experiments a blindfolded seal followed the trail of a fish model seconds after it passed. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/11/) — Sea otters hold paws or wrap themselves in kelp while sleeping so they do not drift apart, and they have the thickest fur of any animal instead of a fat layer. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/12/) — Sea otters smash shellfish on a stone laid on the chest and keep a favourite stone in a loose skin pocket under the arm. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/13/) — Sea otters eat sea urchins that eat kelp; when otters were hunted almost to extinction for fur, urchins spread and kelp forests vanished in places. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/14/) — An animal that keeps a whole habitat in balance, like the sea otter, is called a keystone species. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/15/) — Asian small-clawed otters, the smallest otters in the world, juggle pebbles with their paws, perhaps as play or practice for handling food. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/16/) — Otters keep in touch with squeaks, chirps and whistles, and they came back to many British rivers after harmful farm chemicals, which had poisoned otters and the fish they ate, were banned. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/17/) — The walrus is a relative of seals and sea lions; it uses its two long tusks to haul itself onto the ice and to show strength, and finds clams with its whiskers; walruses are huge, need cold seas and eat lots of clams, so zoos hardly ever keep them. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/100-sea-lions-seals-and-otters/18/) — Some zoos and aquariums rescue seal pups that are ill or have lost their mothers, feed them until they are strong and release them into the sea. - ← previous: [The penguin pool](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/99-the-penguin-pool/) - next →: [The African savanna area: giraffes, zebras, rhinos and antelopes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/101-the-african-savanna-area-giraffes-zebras-rhinos/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)