Doubt you’re going to get anyone to change the common name ‘fur seals’ (even though they aren’t true seals or phocids) into ‘fur sea lions’ at this point, even if it might be more accurate or instructive (but you never know, jellyfish have become sea jellies). (Aside for geeks: what makes this suggested name change perhaps more accurate or instructive is not only that the fur seals are otariids, but also that northern fur seals (Callorhinus) and the many species of southern fur seals (Arctocephalus) may well not be a clade. The southern fur seals may be more closely related to the southern sea lion species (no, not the Galapagos Sea Lion) than they are to Callorhinus. Convergent evolution anyone? The pesky genome folks are messing things up again trying to find the truth. I’ll wait a bit to see. When I started out they were still going back and forth about whether pinnipeds as a whole were mono-, di- or even tri-phyletic. Everyone now agrees – monophyletic) In any case ‘fur seals’ (though maybe not a clade but rather convergent) and sea lions, are different. Fur seals use underfur for insulation (like a sea otter, and what they were hunted for) while sea lions are mostly blubber insulated. There are some other general differences between ‘fur seals’ and ‘sea lions’. Fur seals are generally smaller overall, exhibit greater sexual dimorphism (though it is pronounced in both), have longer flippers relative to their body size and shorter but pointy noses.

Pat Morris