Sea elephants, as these seals are sometimes called, give birth in late winter to a single pup and nurse it for approximately a month. While suckling their young, females do not eat—both mother and child live off the energy stored in ample reserves of her blubber.
- 1 Do elephant seals crush their babies?
- 2 Do elephant seals have enemies?
- 3 What animals do elephant seals eat?
- 4 Are elephant seals aggressive?
- 5 Do elephant seals mate for life?
- 6 Do elephant seals eat sharks?
- 7 Do elephant seals mate on land?
- 8 Do elephant seals eat meat?
- 9 How do elephant seals give birth?
- 10 Are elephant seals bigger than walruses?
- 11 How do elephant seals mate?
- 12 What are the two reasons why elephant seals come on land?
- 13 How long do elephant seals sleep?
- 14 How fast can an elephant seal move on land?
- 15 Why are male elephant seals larger than females?
- 16 Are seals polygamous?
- 17 Do elephant seals fight to the death?
- 18 How long can elephant seals hold their breath?
- 19 How long do elephant seal pups stay with their mother?
- 20 How many northern elephant seals are left in the world?
- 21 Do elephant seals eat penguins?
- 22 Do Orcas hunt male elephant seals?
- 23 How big can elephant seals get?
- 24 Do seals eat eggs?
- 25 Do seals eat humans?
- 26 What do seal pups eat?
- 27 How many babies can an elephant seal have?
- 28 Who would win in a fight walrus or elephant seal?
- 29 What is the second largest seal in the world?
- 30 How do seals get pregnant?
- 31 How many babies does a seal have?
- 32 What is the largest elephant seal ever recorded?
- 33 Can a seal sleep underwater?
- 34 When can elephant mate?
- 35 How long do seals live for?
- 36 Why do seals mate with penguins?
- 37 Do sea lions mate in the water?
- 38 Do elephant seals lay eggs?
- 39 Where do the elephant seals live?
- 40 Do seals have a mating season?
- 41 How fast are elephant seals travel in the water?
- 42 Why do elephant seals have such big noses?
- 43 How heavy is a typical female elephant seal?
- 44 Who eats leopard seals?
- 45 What’s the difference between seals and walruses?
- 46 What is the difference between a seal a sea lion and a walrus?
- 47 Can a woman have multiple husbands?
- 48 Do elephant seals have tails?
- 49 What does elephant seal eat?
- 50 What happens when elephant seals fight?
- 51 How do seals fight?
- 52 How much do elephants weigh?
- 53 How does a seal give birth?
- 54 What is bigger an elephant seal or a walrus?
Do elephant seals crush their babies?
Most copulations in a breeding colony are done by only a small number of males and the rest may never be able to mate with a female. Pups are sometimes crushed during battles between bulls.
Do elephant seals have enemies?
Their time at sea often brings them far from their breeding areas, and they may cover very long distances between times spent on land. Large southern elephant seals have few predators, but killer whales, leopard seals, and some large sharks are known to feed on this species.
What animals do elephant seals eat?
Northern elephant seals’ diet primarily consists of squid and fishes, but they also consume rays and sharks. Northern elephant seals spend about 9 months of the year in the ocean.
Are elephant seals aggressive?
Male elephant seals compete fiercely for access to females during the breeding season, and their violent, bloody fights take a toll on both winners and losers. These battles are relatively rare, however, and a new study shows that the males avoid costly fights by learning the distinctive vocal calls of their rivals.
Do elephant seals mate for life?
Sneaker males hang out along the periphery of the rookery and try to mate when the harem master is asleep or busy. It is believed that only about one percent of all male elephant seals actually get to mate during their life. Males have a very hard life and live a considerably shorter time than the females.
Do elephant seals eat sharks?
In many cases, elephant seals can survive shark bites because of their blubber layer — but may end up with large scars on their bodies after the wounds heal. “Smaller seals still provide a good meal to the sharks and are not as difficult to fight against as the larger adult seals,” park officials said.
Do elephant seals mate on land?
Southern elephant seals breed on land but spend their winters in the frigid Antarctic waters near the Antarctic pack ice. Southern elephants are the largest of all seals. Males can be over 20 feet long and weigh up to 8,800 pounds.
Do elephant seals eat meat?
Type of Seal | Diet |
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Elephant Seal | Rays, squid, fish, and small sharks. |
How do elephant seals give birth?
Births occur a few days after arrival. Births occur on the beach, often at night. The pup nurses from its mother for four weeks, quadrupling its birth weight to around 300 lb (135 kg). The mother’s milk is very rich, reaching around 60% fat by weaning time.
Are elephant seals bigger than walruses?
Elephant seals are bigger than even the largest male walrus. A male Pacific walrus weighs around 1,700 pounds while a male Atlantic walrus weighs around 2,000 pounds. While male elephant seals are often at least double that.
How do elephant seals mate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-VT4f9uC04
What are the two reasons why elephant seals come on land?
Elephant seals come on land to breed and give birth, and to molt.
How long do elephant seals sleep?
Female elephant seals hunt nonstop, sleeping just 1 hour a night.
How fast can an elephant seal move on land?
Southern elephant seals can move along the ground at about 5 kph (3 mph) while on land. While swimming, southern elephant seals move at speeds around 5 – 10 kph (3 – 6 mph).
Why are male elephant seals larger than females?
High reproductive skew means that the rewards for being the largest male around are huge, and so males have been evolutionarily selected to attain large size.
Are seals polygamous?
The mating system of southern elephant seals is strongly polygynous, and it is the purest form of harem based female defence polygyny. Females gather in groups while on land for parturition and suckling of the pup.
Do elephant seals fight to the death?
Do big males fight to the death? Rarely. During the breeding season, bulls battle each other for the right to breed with the females. These confrontations are often bloody, but rarely result in serious injury to either bull.
How long can elephant seals hold their breath?
Male elephant seals can hold their breath for longer than almost any other mammal, diving beneath the waves for up to two hours without surfacing for air. Elephant seals live for just two months of the year on land.
How long do elephant seal pups stay with their mother?
Normally only one pup is born to each female, and she nurses for 25 to 28 days. Ordinarily, a mother nurses her own pup, although if they are separated another female may adopt the youngster.
How many northern elephant seals are left in the world?
The animals were protected by law in America and Mexico in the early twentieth century, and now the population numbers 150,000, proving that it is possible for nature to thrive if given space and a helping hand. And some pups need a bigger helping hand than others.
Do elephant seals eat penguins?
Penguins are frequently killed and eaten by predators like fur seals, leopard seals, elephant seals, and other ground and marine predators.
Do Orcas hunt male elephant seals?
Types of prey
At Sea Lion Island, the main killer whale target are the elephant seals. Although killer whales are routinely observed chasing sea lions, penguins, and even steamer ducks, they concentrate on elephant seals, that is probably the species that guarantees the best return for the effort.
How big can elephant seals get?
They are very much larger than other pinnipeds, with southern elephant seal bulls typically reaching a length of 5 m (16 ft) and a weight of 3,000 kg (7,000 lb), and are much larger than the adult females (cows), with some exceptionally large males reaching up to 6 m (20 ft) in length and weighing 4,000 kg (9,000 lb); …
Do seals eat eggs?
Seals also enjoy eating seabirds. They will catch birds that they find drifting on the sea and they also enjoy visiting bird nests to consume chicks or eggs. Seals usually feed on birds they find living near the sea.
Do seals eat humans?
Diet and foraging
They are the only seals known to regularly hunt and kill warm-blooded prey, including other seals. Although rare, there are a few records of adult leopard seals attacking humans. There has also been one fatality, when a researcher was snorkelling in Antarctic waters and was killed by a leopard seal.
What do seal pups eat?
Flatfish, lesser sandeel and cod species are their favorite food, although what they eat can vary per season, depending upon what’s available. Young seals must teach themselves to eat and catch fish after nursing ends. Their mother doesn’t teach them the tricks. In this period, young seals lose a lot of weight.
How many babies can an elephant seal have?
Even a smaller proportion of these elephant seal supermoms—less than one percent of all females—produced up to 20 pups over their lifetime.
Who would win in a fight walrus or elephant seal?
These animals would likely not fight one another, but many argue that the walrus would likely win. Walruses have tusks to defend themselves, and males often weigh in at over 3,000 pounds.
What is the second largest seal in the world?
Leopard seal Temporal range: Early Pliocene – Recent | |
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Least Concern (IUCN 3.1) | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
How do seals get pregnant?
Seals are mammals, so their reproduction process is like humans (sperm fertilizes an egg). The females have an egg inside their uteruses, which is protected by fluids. After it is fertilized it forms into a seal pup for about 9-11 months (depending on what seal species you are looking at).
How many babies does a seal have?
Females generally give birth to one pup each year. Multiple births are extremely rare, but twin fetuses have been documented.
What is the largest elephant seal ever recorded?
These seals are famous for being big. They are the biggest of pinnipeds – bigger even than walruses – there being a record of a giant male Southern elephant seal that was between 6.5 and 6.8 m long and weighed over 4000 kg (Carwardine 1995).
Can a seal sleep underwater?
When seals sleep in water, they sleep in a position known as bottling. This is a position in which their bodies float but remain completely underwater except for their snouts, which remain above water at all times. Some species of seals sleep completely submerged but remain close to the surface of the water.
When can elephant mate?
Elephants reach sexual maturity early in their second decade of life. African elephants become sexually mature at age 10–12, whereas Asian elephants become sexually mature about age 14.
How long do seals live for?
Life Span of a Seal
If a seal survives the dangers of being a pup, seals are generally long-lived animals. Both the Grey and Common seal have been known to live more than 30 years. One female Grey seal around the Shetland Isles in Scotland was known to be 46 years old.
Why do seals mate with penguins?
It could be that they’re collectively realizing that the birds are easy targets as they look to vent the sexual frustration caused by mating season hormone spikes. It could be that females are hard to come by on these beaches, leaving young male seals looking for other outlets.
Do sea lions mate in the water?
Copulation has been observed on land and in shallow and deep water. Courtship and copulation may last from a few minutes to a few hours. The female terminates copulation by raising her head and shoulders and biting the male’s neck.
Do elephant seals lay eggs?
Since elephant seals mate only three weeks after giving birth, females have evolved a “delayed implantation” process; a fertilized egg hangs out in the uterus for four months before implanting to ensure the pup will be born at the right time the next winter.
Where do the elephant seals live?
Northern elephant seals are found in the eastern and central North Pacific Ocean from Mexico’s Baja California to the Gulf of Alaska.
Do seals have a mating season?
Mating Activity
Mating season varies among the subspecies but generally occurs in late spring through fall, when females come into estrus (“heat” or “season”) usually about six weeks after their pups are born.
How fast are elephant seals travel in the water?
In the sea, they can swim at a speed of 5 to 10 km/hr. Elephant seals dive to great depths. Males spend more time underwater than females. An adult may spend two hours underwater and dive to 7,834 feet.
Why do elephant seals have such big noses?
Elephant seals aren’t named for their size. Rather, the males develop noses that kind of look like elephants’ trunks. They inflate their noses in order to scare other males away — to mate, they have to fight for dominance.
How heavy is a typical female elephant seal?
On average female southern elephant seals weigh 400 to 900 kg (880 to 1,980 lb) and measure 2.6 to 3 m (8.5 to 9.8 ft) long, whereas bulls can range from 2,200 to 4,000 kg (4,900 to 8,800 lb) and grow to 4.2 to 5.8 m (14 to 19 ft) in length.
Who eats leopard seals?
The only natural predator of leopard seals is the killer whale.
What’s the difference between seals and walruses?
Unlike eared seals, and similar to Phocids, walruses lack external ear flaps. Depending on their specific subspecies, seals may come in a variety of shapes that help them move through the water, have sharp carnivore teeth and front flippers that feature sharp, powerful claws.
What is the difference between a seal a sea lion and a walrus?
One obvious difference between walruses, seals and sea lions is that walruses are the only pinnipeds with tusks. These tusks are present in both males and females. Other than tusks, walruses have some similarities to both seals and sea lions. Like true seals, walruses don’t have visible ear flaps.
Can a woman have multiple husbands?
polyandry, marriage of a woman to two or more men at the same time; the term derives from the Greek polys, “many,” and anēr, andros, “man.” When the husbands in a polyandrous marriage are brothers or are said to be brothers, the institution is called adelphic, or fraternal, polyandry.
Do elephant seals have tails?
Like all seals, elephant seals have atrophied hind limbs whose underdeveloped ends form the tail and tail fin. Each of the “feet” can deploy five long, webbed fingers.
What does elephant seal eat?
Behavior and Diet
Northern elephant seals’ diet primarily consists of squid and fishes, but they also consume rays and sharks. Northern elephant seals spend about 9 months of the year in the ocean.
What happens when elephant seals fight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv9xwEKCH_g
How do seals fight?
Aggression. As a last resort when grabbed by a predator, seals will bite and thrash to defend themselves. In the case of male seals, such as elephant seals protecting a territory from competing males, the two will battle by biting and slamming their necks against each other.
How much do elephants weigh?
How does a seal give birth?
The gestation period is 9-11 months. Females will give birth on shore, on ice floes and in the water. Mating resumes shortly after the female has given birth and delayed implantation appears to ensure that pups are born in the proper season with a higher survival rate.
What is bigger an elephant seal or a walrus?
Elephant seals are bigger than even the largest male walrus. A male Pacific walrus weighs around 1,700 pounds while a male Atlantic walrus weighs around 2,000 pounds. While male elephant seals are often at least double that.