Harbor Seals
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40 free Harbor Seals trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The harbor seal is the seal most people actually meet: the round-headed, big-eyed animal watching from a sandbank, a city pier or a rock just offshore. It looks placid, yet it is a skilled diver and hunter with some remarkable senses, and a few individuals have become local legends. This quiz turns the best harbor seal fun facts into questions. They cover the animal's body and how it copes with cold seas, what it eats, how pups are born and raised, where the species lives on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific, the laws and disputes that shaped its fortunes, and the celebrity seals that made headlines. It suits wildlife watchers, students, teachers and anyone who has ever seen a head bobbing in the bay. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you finish knowing far more about this neighbor than when you started.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Hoover, a harbor seal at Boston's New England Aquarium, became famous for which unusual talent?
Imitating human speech
Imitating human speech made Hoover a star: he barked out greetings in the gruff New England accent of the man who raised him as a pup. None of his six pups ever copied him.
Q 02Harbor seals often rest with head and rear flippers raised, a pose nicknamed after which fruit?
A banana
A banana curve is the classic resting pose of the species, seen on rocks, beaches and even on ice drifting in northern fjords.
Q 03In the 1994 family film Andre, about a real harbor seal, which kind of animal played the title role?
A sea lion
A sea lion named Tory took the part. The real Andre spent some 25 years alongside the harbormaster who raised him.
Q 04A young harbor seal that became a London celebrity on the River Thames in 2021 was named after which singer?
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury the seal drew crowds near Hammersmith Bridge, far upriver from the sea, in a river once written off as ecologically dead.
Q 05A harbor seal with one cloudy eye became Friday Harbor's official seal under which cartoon character's name?
Popeye
Popeye was named the Port of Friday Harbor's official seal in 2005, a pun the Washington marina marked with a granite sculpture of her.
Q 06In experiments, harbor seals tracked the wake of a miniature submarine using which sensitive body part?
Their whiskers
Their whiskers can follow the trail a swimming fish leaves behind, much as a dog follows a scent, even in dark or murky seas.
Q 07Where does a tired newborn harbor seal pup sometimes hitch a ride while swimming at sea?
On its mother's back
On its mother's back is where a weary pup rests, though it can swim from birth and dive for two minutes when only a few days old.
Q 08Off California, which large fish joins the killer whale as a top predator of harbor seals?
Great white shark
The great white shark and the orca are the harbor seal's main ocean predators, one reason the seals rest ashore in groups, where each animal spends less time on watch.
Q 09What mainly keeps a harbor seal warm in cold seas?
Blubber
Blubber insulates so well that a harbor seal's skin stays only about one degree Celsius warmer than the sea around it.
Q 10When a harbor seal pup is found alone on a beach, what is its mother most likely doing?
Feeding nearby
Feeding nearby is the usual answer, so a lone pup is rarely an orphan. Crowding it can scare the mother away for good, which is why walkers are asked to keep their distance.
Q 11Which feature, seen on every fur seal, does a harbor seal lack, a quick way to tell the two apart?
Ear flaps
Ear flaps mark the eared seals; true seals such as the harbor seal have only a small opening on each side of the head.
Q 12Fused pelvic bones stop harbor seals from walking, so their wriggle across a beach is likened to which animal?
A caterpillar
A caterpillar is the usual comparison: the seal ripples forward on its belly because it cannot tuck its hind limbs under its body. The motion is normal, not a sign of injury.
Q 13Besides fish, squid and crabs, harbor seals have been recorded killing and eating several kinds of which birds?
Ducks
Q 21The nostrils of a harbor seal, set on a short dog-like snout, form which distinctive letter shape?
V
V-shaped nostrils, a rounded head and a short muzzle help watchers tell a harbor seal from the longer-nosed gray seal.
Q 22The harbor seal's usual name in Britain and Ireland swaps the word harbor for which adjective?
Common
Common seal is a misleading label in Britain, where the larger grey seal is far more numerous.
Q 23The endangered Ungava seal, a harbor seal subspecies found only in freshwater lakes, lives in which Canadian province?
Quebec
Quebec's Ungava seals are thought to descend from animals cut off from the sea as the ice sheets retreated thousands of years ago, and very few remain.
Ducks of several kinds have fallen prey to harbor seals, though fish such as herring, cod and flatfish make up most meals.
Q 14Harbor seals will swim over a hundred miles up large rivers in pursuit of shad and which other migratory fish?
Salmon
Salmon runs draw harbor seals far inland, which is why the animals sometimes turn up in rivers and even in lakes.
Q 15Harbor seals do not chew, so how do they usually eat a small fish they have caught?
Swallow it whole
Swallow it whole is the rule for small prey, while a bigger catch is torn into chunks first. An adult gets through roughly 10 to 18 pounds a day.
Q 16Which part of the United Kingdom is home to the vast majority of the country's harbor seals?
Scotland
Scotland holds most of Britain's harbor seals, and in the 19th century their skins were made there into jackets, boots and sporrans.
Q 17Andre, a harbor seal honored with a statue beside the harbor in Rockport, lived in which US state?
Maine
Maine's town of Rockport unveiled its statue of Andre in 1978, eight years before the seal died.
Q 18Robbins Reef off New Jersey, once a resting place for harbor seals, takes its name from which language's word for seal?
Dutch
Dutch settlers of the 1600s named the ridge for the animals that lay on it at low tide, using their word rob.
Q 19A sheltered beach built for children in 1931 has been taken over by harbor seals in which California city?
San Diego
San Diego's Children's Pool in La Jolla was a gift from Ellen Browning Scripps. Seals moved in during the 1990s, and after years in court the colony was allowed to stay.
Q 20Harbor seals spend winters on tiny Hoffman and Swinburne Islands, within sight of which American city's skyline?
New York
New York lost its seals to hunting and pollution, but they returned as the harbor grew cleaner, and a park ranger has likened the city to their Miami resort.
Q 24About half of the rich milk a harbor seal mother feeds her pup is made up of what?
Fat
Fat makes up roughly half the milk, so a pup can roughly double its birth weight in about a month before it is weaned.
Q 25Although harbor seal pups are born ashore, where do the adults court and mate?
In the water
In the water is where harbor seals mate: in the breeding season each male holds a small underwater territory and roars to advertise himself.
Q 26What do biologists call it when a harbor seal leaves the sea to rest on rocks or a beach?
Hauling out
Hauling out takes up about half of a Pacific harbor seal's life: time ashore is for warming up, resting, giving birth and nursing.
Q 27Researchers can tell individual harbor seals apart because which feature is unique to every animal?
Its spot pattern
Its spot pattern works like a fingerprint and comes in two styles: dark flecks on a pale coat, or pale rings on a dark one.
Q 28Among all the world's pinnipeds, the group that includes walruses, the harbor seal holds which record?
Widest distribution
Widest distribution fits an animal found on the coasts of North America, Europe and Asia, from Mexico's Baja California to beyond 78 degrees north.
Q 29Which 1972 US law made it a federal offense to kill or harass a harbor seal?
Marine Mammal Protection Act
The Marine Mammal Protection Act covers every seal, whale and dolphin in US seas, and many harbor seal populations have grown since it passed.
Q 30Until 1960, several US states paid bounty hunters to kill harbor seals because the animals were blamed for what?
Competing with fishermen
Competing with fishermen for the catch made harbor seals a target in five states, and numbers recovered in many places once the bounties stopped.