The Elephant Seal is also called the SEA ELEPHANT: there are both Northern and Southern Species.
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| Two scarred males fighting |
Elephant Seals are the two largest pinnipeds (aquatic mammals of the suborder Pinnipedia). The Southern Elephant Seal (M.leonina) is found throughout sub-Antarctic regions. Elephant seals are gregarious animals famed for their size and for the male's inflatable, trunklike snout. They are members of the family Phocidae.
The Southern Elephant Seal is blue-grey and has an extensive moulting period in which considerable patches of hair and skin are shed.
Males attain a length of approximately 6.5 m (21 feet) and a weight of about 3,530 kg (7,780 pounds) and are much larger than the females, which grow to 3.5 m and weigh 900 kg.
Elephant seals feed on fish and on squid or other cephalopods. The northern species is nonmigratory; the southern elephant seal, like the northern species, breeds and moults on land, but winters at sea, possibly near the pack ice (though this has never been firmly established).
During the breeding season, male elephant seals become extremely aggressive toward each other.
Bulls fight to establish territories along beaches and to acquire harems of up to 40 cows. The cows produce a single brownish black pup yearly. They mate about three weeks after delivery, and a three-month dormancy period ensues before the fertilized ovum implants. The total pregnancy lasts about 11 months.
Both species have been hunted for their oil and in the 19th century were reduced almost to extinction on the subantarctic islands; under protection, however, they have gradually increased in number and their survival is no longer threatened by man
