"Sea elephant" redirects here. For the superfamily of sea slugs, see Pterotracheoidea.
Elephant seals
Male and female northern elephant seals
Male and female southern elephant seals
Scientific classification
Domain:
Eukaryota
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Carnivora
Clade:
Pinnipedia
Family:
Phocidae
Tribe:
Miroungini Muizon, 1981
Genus:
Mirounga Gray, 1827
Type species
Phoca leonina
Species
M. angustirostris
M. leonina
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 oil by the end of the 19th century, but their numbers have since recovered. They are the largest extant carnivorans, weighing up to 4,000 kilograms (8,800 lb). Despite their name, elephant seals are not closely related to elephants, and the large proboscis or trunk that males have was convergently evolved.
The northern elephant seal, somewhat smaller than its southern relative, ranges over the Pacific coast of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The most northerly breeding location on the Pacific Coast is at Race Rocks Marine Protected Area, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The southern elephant seal is found in the Southern Hemisphere on islands such as South Georgia and Macquarie Island, and on the coasts of New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa, and Argentina in the Peninsula Valdés. In southern Chile, there is a small colony of 120 animals at Jackson Bay (Bahía Jackson) in Admiralty Sound (Seno Almirantazgo) on the southern coast of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego.[1]
The oldest known unambiguous elephant seal fossils are fragmentary fossils of a member of the tribe Miroungini described from the late Pliocene Petane Formation of New Zealand.[2] Teeth originally identified as representing an unnamed species of Mirounga have been found in South Africa, and dated to the Miocene epoch;[3][4] however, Boessenecker and Churchill (2016) considered these teeth almost certainly to be misidentified toothed whale (odontocete) teeth.[2] The elephant seals evolved in the Pacific Ocean during the Pliocene period.[2][5][6]
Elephant seals breed annually and are seemingly habitual to colonies that have established breeding areas.[7]
^ abcBoessenecker, RW; Churchill, M (2016). "The origin of elephant seals: implications of a fragmentary late Pliocene seal (Phocidae: Miroungini) from New Zealand". New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. 59 (4): 544–550. Bibcode:2016NZJGG..59..544B. doi:10.1080/00288306.2016.1199437. S2CID 133343398.
^Pickford, Martin; Senut, Brigitte (1997). "Cainozoic mammals from coastal Namaqualand, South Africa". Palaeontologia Africana. 34: 199–217. hdl:10539/16409.
^Berta, A.; Churchill, M. (2012). "Pinniped Taxonomy: evidence for species and subspecies". Mammal Review. 42 (3): 207–234. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2907.2011.00193.x.
^Rule, James P.; Adams, Justin W.; Rovinsky, Douglass S.; Hocking, David P.; Evans, Alistair R.; Fitzgerald, Erich M. G. (November 2020). "A new large-bodied Pliocene seal with unusual cutting teeth". Royal Society Open Science. 7 (11): 201591. Bibcode:2020RSOS....701591R. doi:10.1098/rsos.201591. ISSN 2054-5703. PMC 7735334. PMID 33391813.
^Rule, James P.; Adams, Justin W.; Marx, Felix G.; Evans, Alistair R.; Tennyson, Alan J. D.; Scofield, R. Paul; Fitzgerald, Erich M. G. (11 November 2020). "First monk seal from the Southern Hemisphere rewrites the evolutionary history of true seals". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 287 (1938): 20202318. doi:10.1098/rspb.2020.2318. PMC 7735288. PMID 33171079.
^De Bruyn, Mark; Hall, Brenda L.; Chauke, Lucas F.; Baroni, Carlo; Koch, Paul L.; Hoelzel, A. Rus (2009). "Rapid Response of a Marine Mammal Species to Holocene Climate and Habitat Change". PLOS Genetics. 5 (7): e1000554. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000554. PMC 2700269. PMID 19593366.
Elephantseals or sea elephants are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus Mirounga. Both species, the northern elephantseal (M. angustirostris)...
The southern elephantseal (Mirounga leonina) is one of two species of elephantseals. It is the largest member of the clade Pinnipedia and the order Carnivora...
ago. Seals range in size from the 1 m (3 ft 3 in) and 45 kg (100 lb) Baikal seal to the 5 m (16 ft) and 3,200 kg (7,100 lb) southern elephantseal. Several...
Enaliarctos, most closely related to the mustelids and bears. Monk seals and elephantseals were previously believed to have first entered the Pacific through...
exceptionally large elephantseal at weaning age. Super weaners may reach their large sizes by stealing milk from nursing female elephantseals or by being adopted...
leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx), also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic (after the southern elephant seal)...
ancestral Lobodontini likely diverged from its sister clade, Mirounga (elephantseals) in the late Miocene to early Pliocene, when they migrated southward...
brown fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus), also known as the Cape fur seal, South African fur seal and Australian fur seal, is a species of fur seal. The brown...
Lobodontini likely diverged from their sister clade, the Mirounga (elephantseals) in the late Miocene to early Pliocene, when they migrated southward...
are weaned, while the mother loses up to 140 kg (300 lb). Monk seals, like elephantseals, shed their hair and the outer layer of their skin in an annual...
The ringed seal (Pusa hispida) is an earless seal inhabiting the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. The ringed seal is a relatively small seal, rarely greater...
The harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus), also known as Saddleback Seal or Greenland Seal, is a species of earless seal, or true seal, native to the northernmost...
Baikal seal, Lake Baikal seal or nerpa (Pusa sibirica) is a species of earless seal endemic to Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia. Like the Caspian seal, it...
The grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) is a large seal of the family Phocidae, which are commonly referred to as "true seals" or "earless seals". The only...
The harbor (or harbour) seal (Phoca vitulina), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the...
and, among pinnipeds, are exceeded in size only by the two species of elephantseals. Walrus live mostly in shallow waters above the continental shelves...
The Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) is one of eight seals in the genus Arctocephalus, and one of nine fur seals in the subfamily Arctocephalinae...
Monk seals are earless seals of the tribe Monachini. They are the only earless seals found in tropical climates. The two genera of monk seals, Monachus...
The ribbon seal (Histriophoca fasciata) is a medium-sized pinniped from the true seal family (Phocidae). A seasonally ice-bound species, it is found in...
spotted seal (Phoca largha), also known as the larga seal or largha seal, is a member of the family Phocidae, and is considered a "true seal". It inhabits...
The hooded seal (Cystophora cristata) is a large phocid found only in the central and western North Atlantic, ranging from Svalbard in the east to the...
largest of the so-called eared seals (Otariidae). Among pinnipeds, only the walrus and the two species of elephantseal are bigger. The species is named...
seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. The Weddell seal was...
classic example of a population bottleneck is that of the northern elephantseal, whose population fell to about 30 in the 1890s. Although it now numbers...
and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. The sea lions have six extant and one extinct species...
The Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) is a monk seal belonging to the family Phocidae. As of 2015[update], it is estimated that fewer than 700...
Global Information
