I hope everyone had a great weekend. I know I sure did! It was gorgeous in the Yukon and I enjoyed every minute of it. Since it is Monday (well, Sunday night as I am writing this the night before) that means we need to get back to work. I figured we would start the week off with an interesting animal called the Elephant Seal. It is similar to a regular seal but they have a much cooler snout and make awesome elephant-like noises.
The Elephant Seal is the largest of all the seals weighing in at about 900 kg (1900 lbs). That is one heavy seal! There are two species of elephant seals. The Northern and Southern Elephant Seals. I know, they are not very creative when deciding upon their names. It is funny to think that the Northern Seals can be found in California which isn’t very northern if you ask me. Although, when you compare them to the Southern seals which are usually found in Antarctica, I guess it is Northern. For the record, these Southern Seals can weigh up to 4000 kg (8800 lbs) and I thought the 1900 lb seals were big.
The most interesting aspect of the Elephant Seal has to be their mating behaviour. Yes I know their noses are interesting but it plays a role in mating so I will get to it in a second. You see the mating patterns of the Elephant Seal are unique since only 5% of the males will be part of 90% of all the matings. Mating for the males is a very rough sport as it usually involves fighting off other males. This is the reason the necks of the elephant seal are very rough and strong (when fighting, they hit each other with their powerful necks). Generally, the dominant and strong males will have a harem of female seals. It is for this reason that they won’t actually mate until they are about 10 years old even though they are mature at 5 years of age. I guess sites like Plenty of Fish are very ineffective for the Elephant Seal. Life just isn’t fair when the Fabio Type seals are hogging all of the good women. I almost forgot to tell you how the noses play into all of this. Well, the nose of the elephant seal can be inflated which makes it point towards the voice box. This allows the seal to make very loud noises which can be heard up to a mile away. This obviously discourages other seals and is a sign of dominance. See, I told you I would get to the interesting aspects of the odd looking seal nose.
Elephant Seal Fast Fact – Elephant seals were once hunted for their oil to the brink of extinction. Due to the proper legislation their population is on the rebound. Yay for Government Legislation. And we thought the paperwork the Government makes you go through is for nothing. This just goes to show that sometimes they know what they are doing!
All right, I am off now. Have a great day!
