*MY Chambers (hi, sweet Jo!) doesn't even HAVE the word pinniped! But it says that pinna is: "a leaflet of a pinnate leaf, or similar expansion; a wing, fin (EA), feather, or similar expansion; the outer ear, esp. the upper part.

Ooh, I feel like one of the big boys, now! :-)

Here's a weird word with a weird meaning: "pinnatifid: pinnately cut nearly or about halfway down." Now--what in the world could have prompted the need for a word for that??

One thing that may be adding to the confusion: we US'ns have been, for whatever reasons, taught to think of sea lions as seals, and vice versa. Probably the movies. I cannot (speaking of hard-wired learning) now picture a seal and think "seal"--I have to first picture, say, the starring animal in 'Sammy, the Way Out Seal', and THEN think, "Oh, yeah--that's really a sea lion". Sigh.

I see stales has posted something else that fits this category: right whale. (stales, are you bringing out the 'animal' in us ladies?)