As if the inflatable hood on their head and red balloon-like air bag they blow out their nose weren't weird enough.

Two Arctic seals strayed about 2,500 miles from their native icy waters, making their way to South Florida beaches this past weekend to stump biologists more versed in manatee than seal proclivities.

"The reason why they're doing this, we don't have a clue. It's unusual," said Greg Bossart, a marine mammal pathologist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce, where the seals are being treated. "They're suffering from very severe dehydration. They're in extremely guarded condition."

The Arctic hooded seals washed up a day apart: a 6-month-old female on Saturday in Hobe Sound and a 4-month-old pup on the beach in Palm Beach County on Sunday.

Passersby found the two roughly 60-pounders and called state wildlife officials, Bossart said.

While it's not unheard of -- Arctic hooded seals venture far from their mothers just days after being born -- it's rare they make it so far south.

Bossart recalls one reaching South Florida about 25 years ago. They've also been reported as far as the Caribbean Sea, where other seal sightings have been reported earlier this summer.

Another hooded seal pup stranded Friday in Wrightsville Beach, N.C. It's being treated at a Virginia aquarium.

Hooded seals mostly keep to Newfoundland and Greenland, where they grow to about six feet long and 1,000 pounds.

"Their regular distribution is usually not very far south of New Jersey," said Liz Tuohy-Sheen, a biologist with National Marine Fisheries Service.

Typically, one or none strand in the Southeast United States and Caribbean each year. The last cluster of southbound seals -- seven of them -- washed up in 2000. Eight have shown up so far this year, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

It's been a summer of odd migrations. In early August, an adult manatee made national news when boaters spotted it lumbering down the Hudson River in Manhattan.

Theories as to why the seals are straying include changes in food supply, global warming melting ice caps, an atypical birthing year or recent hurricanes.

Harbor Branch biologists hope to nurse the two seals back to health, then transfer them to a rehabilitation center in New Jersey for eventual release back up north. But their chances for survival appeared slim Monday.

"They ate a lot of sand, trying to flush that out of them," Bossart said. "Their prognosis is extremely guarded."

Seals often swallow sand when stressed out by approaching people.

Biologists say beachgoers should stay away from seals if they spot them stranded and call state wildlife officials.

"They pack a nasty bite and they have very sharp teeth," Tuohy-Sheen said.

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