Elephant seals or sea elephants are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus Mirounga. Both species, the northern elephant seal (M. angustirostris) and the southern elephant seal (M. leonina), were hunted to the brink of extinction for lamp oil by the end of the 19th century, but their numbers have since recovered. They can weigh up to ...

2024年1月16日 · On the first day they head out to sea, juvenile northern elephant seals can dive for up to 11 minutes, a duration that their southern relatives don’t achieve for 125 days, according to a...

2025年1月1日 · A mother elephant seal barks to a pup who appears to be listening on Dec. 30, 2024. The seals were lounging near the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, where pups will be born through January....

2025年1月17日 · Elephant seals are quite the punctual marine mammal. Pregnant female elephant seals undertake an approximately 240-day, 6,000-mile migration from their foraging grounds in the open ocean to their breeding grounds. …

A female normally gives birth annually to a single pup in the winter. She then nurses her pup for about four weeks, copulates during the last few days of nursing, and then weans and abandons her pup to go to sea on a foraging trip lasting approximately 2.5 months.

2024年3月2日 · It’s then that these bull elephant seals — weighing as much as 5,500 pounds — are laser-focused on mating with 1,200-pound females and fighting off other dominant males to defend ownership of...

The weaned pup remains in the rookery, fasting, for an additional 8 to 10 weeks. By mid-March, most of the adult seals are gone, leaving the pups behind. As the beach becomes less populated, the pups start exploring the shallow water just off shore.

2023年3月3日 · Male elephant seals, weighing up to 5,000 pounds, often inadvertently crush seal pups. (Pat Pemberton/Courthouse News) While basic survival is a challenge for these pups, volunteers at the Marine Mammal Center help increase their odds of living to their maximum lifespan — 14 to 20 years.

2024年2月7日 · In an unlikely act of altruism observed two years ago, a male elephant seal prevented a younger animal from drowning.

Elephant seal pups are born at 75 pounds and must nurse every day for approximately one month. After one month, and when they have reached 300 pounds, their mom leaves them.