If you've ever wondered what a sea lion tongue looks like, Seirra here can show you! She often sticks her tongue out during quiet moments—and we happen to think it's just plain adorable.

Sierra the California sea lion, "Plllffffft!"

Quiet moments for this gal are few and far between, however. You'll usually find her romping with her fellow sea lion, Zoe, or carousing with the youngsters—Leu, Flaherty, Chiidax and Kit.

Zoe and Sierra are two peas in a pod.

Sometimes the trainers engage the seals and sea lions with a little enrichment—something out of the ordinary that's fun to explore and play with. A plain old garden sprinkler works for this!

Sprinkler time

Sierra's athletic and acrobatic sides are often on full display during training sessions. Head out to the New Balance Foundation Marine Mammal Center during your next visit to check on Sierra and the rest of the rambunctious crew of marine mammals. You never know what these fast and fascinating animals will be up to!

Learn more about the marine mammal training and play:

• Speaking of tongues,  see Chacoda the harbor seal's handsome tongue
• Lindsay and Leu have been working on some pretty nifty Frisbee skills
• Paul taught Chacoda to wear a harness and he's become quite the GoPro videographer
• It's not all work and no play, the fur seal pups get to play in the snow sometimes!

Rochelle posted a blog about seals sticking out their tongues when we first started the blog. I thought it would be neat to show you how we teach that behavior. I just taught Chacoda how to stick his tongue out like the others and here are the steps I took:

First, I needed to let him know what I was looking for. I wanted to use a little "tongue target." Since he is used to my fingers in his mouth (for mouth check-ups and brushing), I chose to use the smooth end of a toothbrush. Every time I touched the tip of his tongue with the end, I would bridge him and reward. I did this a few times, just to make sure he knew what I was looking for.




Then, I put the end close to his tongue, but didn't touch it. I wanted him to find the target he had been reinforced for so many times. Since I had made it clear that touching this = lots of fish, it was no surprise that he caught on quickly and pushed his tongue out toward the target.





I immediately bridged the forward motion and fed A LOT. I wanted to be sure he knew that pushing outward with his tongue was the motion I was looking for. This is where I introduced my signal, a tap on the nose. Each time I asked him to find the target and stick out that tongue, I tapped his nose so he would pair the two. Nose tap = stick out my tongue.






After approximating his tongue out to his lip, I was able to selectively bridge and reinforce the trials where his tongue was out the farthest, without using the toothbrush end.







With the correct reinforcement, I successfully taught him that tapping the end of his nose, meant stick out your tongue!