The seal bird is a large flightless bird that lives amongst the coastal regions of Scandera and it spends most of it's time in the ocean even if it has to surface to breath and to hatch it's egg as it require it's young to be born on land. However due to the slow lack of habitat as the human cities spreads amongst the shores so is it listed as near threatened even if most people agrees that it is long from a problem.

Etymology

seal bird
	File:Gannet whale.jpg
	A picture of the mighty seal bird
Conservation status
	; Near Threatened (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Valusfaglius
Family:	Avespinna
Genus:	longusrostro
Species:	L.Seliusfaglius
Binomial name
	longusrostro Seliusfaglius; Hylfred Görenssen, 1798
	File:Whalebird habitat.png
	Habitat

The name of the seal bird have evolved very little over time and the modern Imerian word "Sal fagel" evolved from the Urmål word "hvalr fugl" which however means "whale bird" rather than "seal bird"

History

Both for the northern icesteps and for the south so have the Seal bird been important and hunted for food by sentient beings with heavy crossbows and with long pikes. While the animal normally just withdrew into the ocean protected by their heavy bones and fat body so did people hunt them during their nesting season when they had to defend their eggs.

They were also domesticated rather early as if they were fed nothing but lobsters so could a dyer use their puke in the process of colouring clothes purple which was a rare and expensive colour despite the seal bird puke made the colouring process easier.

Taxonomy

Just as quite a few Scanderan animals so does it have pig latin in it's designation as Hylfred Görenssen did not speak or write the language and when he made his book the swimming races or "di simmande raserna" did he classify it as a Valiusfaglius which can be translated to "Whaleiusbirdius" and as the other conflicts between him and the royal academic society so did the high king step in due to the feud between the high king and the head of the academy over who had the better race horse.

It also has the genus longusrostro or "long beak" which separates it from the extinct genus short beaks that were distant cousins to the seal bird but had much shorter beaks.

Anatomy and health

File:Sealbirdsize.png

Size compared to a human

On land so is the seal bird a slow and clumsy creature that most of the time prefers to lie still in the sunlight. In water however so is it a very nimble creature that swims at extraordinary speeds and uses it's powerful meter long beak to catch fish.

To further help it catch prey with it's beak so is the beak edged with what could be liked to teeth which allows it to trap fish and to kill them so that it could eat them. On land so is the beak also used as a defensive weapon and it can easily hurt a would be predator as the seal bird withdraws into the ocean. To further help it defend itself on land so can it also puke at it's foes. When the sealbird does this so does it launch a projectile of liquefied fish and acid at distances up to ten meters. While this puke in itself is harmless so is it quite foul smelling and even experienced humans are knowns to throw up when exposed to the smell just as horsewolves are known to run in panic to get away.

Reproduction

The seal bird's mate in autumn and the female and male takes turn to let the egg rest on their rear flippers. When a pair have chosen a mate so do they mate for life and tends to stay as a pair until one of them dies. The female does however only give birth to one egg at a time and to protect them so does a colony of seal birds often bundle up together to form a wall of nesting birds with their beaks pointed outwards while they let their eggs rest protected on their flippers towards the sea with a few hundred kilos of fat and beak pointed outwards to fend of predators.

Diet

The seal bird is a predator that eats fish, clams, oysters, crabs, octopuses and even lobsters that it hunts under the water.

Behaviour

The seal bird is a pack animal and it lives in massive colonies on the Scanderan beaches just like the walrus does in the northern parts and in the northern iceplains is it common to see beaches covered by both walruses and sealbirds. Despite being an amphibious creature so does the seal bird spend most of it's time on land as it lies in large "beak walls" as the Scanderans call it when they line up with their beaks directed towards land to fend off predators. Despite this so is they hardly aggressive animals but if one come to close so can one both get puked at and get a nasty bite as it is quite capable to ripping apart flesh with ease.