Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
the ribbon seals most defining feature, their stripes, take 4 years to develop!
here is a short timeline of their development ðŸ¦
adorable white coat ribbon seal pups. this baby fur is called lanugo.
after around 1 month pups will start shedding their baby fur to reveal a grey and silver coat
young seals with their grey and silver coat
then, the juvenile seals with start to develop their stripes over the next 3 years. they grow stronger with each moult, females can reach sexual maturity before they have fully developed stripes. this mothers stripes aren’t fully there yet.
once they’re 4 years old a ribbon seals stripes will have fully developed.
male and female are easy to tell apart by their coat colour, the males will have bold black and white stripes
whereas the females have more brown/beige/silver stripes
and yes I left corvids off on purpose, bc I figured they would win by a long margin. I want to see what other kinds of birds people like! Also these groupings aren’t exactly scientific, so like, don’t yell at me.