A big harem and a trunk that beckons females: 10 interesting facts about elephant seals (7 photos)

This is a type of seal. They remain one of the largest predators on the planet (of course, yielding to whales).





Elephant seals grow up to 6 meters in length and weigh up to 5 tons!

Large dimensions play an important role in the life of elephant seals. And it's not just that the bigger you are, the harder it is to hunt you predators. It's just that the large volume of blood allows elephant seals to store oxygen. And due to this, they can delay for a long time breath and dive to a depth of two kilometers! Elephant seals are capable hold your breath for more than an hour and a half.



Even their eyes are specific to mammals, adapted to conditions at depth.

Their eyes are quite large. In these eyes of photoreceptor cells more than color cones. Because of this, they distinguish colors much more worse and the world is gray and faded for them. But due to this, their eyes are capable of catch any light, even the most meager. The light reflects back on retina, which helps to see in almost complete darkness. Ears also specific - they can hold high pressure and catch even minimal sound.

Favorite food - squid, big fish and octopuses.

Why are they called elephants and not just giant seals?

It's all about the trunk!





The trunk is only in males and it performs two important tasks. First, yes - attracts females. But not in size.

With it, they emit a piercing roar, which they like so much. sea ​​elephants. Males with the most beautiful trunks and powerful roar they collect harems for themselves, in which there can be more than a hundred (!) females.

Second, it helps them breathe.

Sea elephants are not only a mountain of muscles. They tend to accumulate large reserves of fat. For residents of the cold - this is a mandatory measure okay.



Having a large harem is a luxury that requires work.

During the breeding season, males are busy with serious work, from which they do not They even manage to get distracted by food. During three months of mating, males, Literally starving!

In their free time from mating, males have to drive away competitors. And then the most massive win! Elephant seal fights look funny. It is due to the weight and dimensions that the male drives away a competitor, not allowing the adultery of his girlfriends. Such a difficult life do not envy!



Fat is to the rescue.

Not only because protects from the cold, provides a reserve of energy and helps to gain an advantage in fight by weight. It plays an important role in the survival of babies. breast Sea elephant milk is one of the fattest in the world. Fatty acid account for up to 50% of its volume. For comparison, in humans this indicator - 4%, slightly less fat than the average cow.

The females were lucky with childbirth - they take only a few minutes.

The cub and mother are strongly attached to each other, remembering by smell and voice (as we remember, with vision in elephant seals, things are not very good).



Elephant seals are perfectly adapted to life in harsh environments. cold conditions. Food reserves, the ability to hunt at depth, inaccessibility to predators made them ideal inhabitants of the harsh region. However, man and here managed to take up over nature.

Males differ from females not only in the presence of a trunk.

They are also much larger. The difference is much greater than in humans, where men are, on average, 10-15% larger than women.

This is due to the fact that they have different feeding strategies. Marine elephants actively climb into those areas where there are many predators. killer whales and large white sharks pose a threat to them.

However, male elephant seals are very large and are not afraid of enemies, so they can afford it. Females swim to feed in safe areas. There are few enemies, but the conditions are not the most attractive. females content with little, and therefore do not grow to gigantic proportions.



No protection helped - elephant seals were almost exterminated.

They miraculously survived without following the sea cows into oblivion.

Elephant seals began uncontrolled hunting, because of the catyell at in the north, out of a million individuals, no one remained. At the end of the 19th century they declared extinct because no one saw them again. However several individuals managed to escape - apparently they were at a depth during hunting raids. And gradually the population began to revive. Before the former flocks, of course, it is already impossible to return - if only because there are many of them former habitats have already been mastered by man and there is oil production.

Southern elephant seals are not endangered yet. In times of uncontrolled hunting, swimming in Antarctica was expensive and their practically untouched.