otary

otary (OH-ta-ree) - n., any eared seal.


For generations, the esoteric knowledge that there are seals with ears was handed down as marine biology lore from adviser to mentee. However, they failed to keep it a complete secret from the lexicographers, and once Webster's broke the story, it spread from dictionary to dictionary, but it was not until the advent of Wikipedia that it became publicly known that sea lions (family Otariidae) have ears.

(Of course the French, who call a sea lion an otarie, knew this all along. That's why they're so smug.)

---L.