Eight Ways Elephant Seals Have Evolved

I took these photos of elephant seals at Piedras Blancas State Marine Reserve in California. Here are some interesting ways that elephant seals have adapted to their harsh environment:

1. As you can guess, their name comes from the large noses of the males. Besides being a way to scare off competing males and attract the ladies, these noses may also help males conserve moisture when they are out of the water. Elephant seals can spend up to 3 months at a time “hauled out” on the beach during breeding season, with their stored blubber their only source of energy and moisture. It is believed that some of the moisture they exhale is captured and reabsorbed by their nose.


2. Another way elephant seals conserve moisture is by producing urine that is more concentrated than many other animals. Yuck, enough said.


3. Elephant seals and monk seals are the only mammals that molt their skin all at once, rather than shedding it continuously in small amounts. This allows them to shut down blood circulation near their skin when they are in the water, helping them to keep warm, conserve energy, and build up that all-important blubber. I was at Piedras Blancas in late July, which is molting season for the males. The tan seal in the photo below has some good molting going on.



4. Elephant seals have really bad sleep apnea. But in their case it is a good thing, allowing them to conserve energy while on the beach without food or water. They can go without breathing for up to 30 minutes while lounging on the beach.


5. Another way that female elephant seals conserve energy is through “delayed implantation” of their embryos. The breeding season includes giving birth, nursing pups, and being impregnated again before going back into the water. But the new embryo will float around in the uterus for 3 or 4 months before attaching to the uterine wall, giving mom a chance to eat and build up her strength before sharing with junior.


6. Elephant seals can dive as deep as 5000 feet. The only mammals that can dive deeper are sperm whales and bottlenose whales. One way they accomplish this is by completely collapsing their lungs before diving, driving out all the air. This prevents nitrogen in the air from dissolving in their blood under high pressure, and coming out when they resurface causing the “bends”.


7. Elephant seals can stay under water for over an hour, then resurface for only a few minutes before diving again. They are able to do this by storing a higher concentration of oxygen in their blood and muscle tissue than other mammals.


8. Elephant seals have been observed eating stones before hauling out of the water for the breeding and molting seasons. When they return to the water, these stones come out the other end. It is believed this helps them fill their stomach while fasting.

My Proboscid Is Bigger Than Your Proboscid

The gross-sounding statement in the title of this post was uttered by one of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson (OK, I'm paraphrasing). It's not as bad as it sounds - proboscids are an order of animals that includes modern-day elephants, and extinct elephant-like creatures like mastodons and mammoths. Proboscid is short for Proboscidea, which is the actual name of the taxonomic order. As you can guess, these animals all have long proboscises (noses/trunks).

The photo above is from a visit to the Rutgers University Geology Museum. My wife and I visited their annual Open House last weekend. We met at Rutgers, so the trip was nostalgic as well as geologic. The photo is of a mastodon unearthed by a farmer in southern New Jersey in 1869.

But back to Thomas Jefferson ...

Jefferson's fit of proboscid envy was prompted by a man with the pretentious name of Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. "Comte" is a French title of nobility, similar in rank to an English earl. He is generally referred to as Buffon, although that is the town he was comte of and not his name.

Buffon was a well-known naturalist in the late 18th century, and made many observations including some that presaged Darwin's theory of evolution. But his observation that got Jefferson's wig twisted was what became known as the Theory of American Degeneracy. The idea was that due to a colder, more humid climate in the New World, the animals there (including humans) were smaller and weaker than those in the Old World.

It's not hard to see that Americans would be upset by this theory, especially being a new country that would not benefit from being seen as weak in the eyes of European powers. Jefferson, being somewhat of a naturalist himself, took on the task of refuting Buffon.

It turned out this was not very difficult to do. Buffon had never been to the New World, and his theories were based on incomplete and misleading information provided by others. Jefferson put together a list of several species that are larger in the New World than in the Old. Exhibit A was the mastodon, which not only was larger than the elephant, but was the largest known terrestrial animal in the ENTIRE world!

Never mind that the mastodon was extinct. At the time, which was before the expedition of Lewis and Clark, many believed that mastodons might still be roaming the interior of the American continent.

To make a long story short, the Americans got over their inferiority complex.

The End (the back end, that is):

Rocky Mountain Elk Rut

Here is another photo from my trip to Colorado two years ago. This one is in Estes Park, which is just outside Rocky Mountain National Park. Believe it or not, this is in the parking lot of a hotel a couple of doors down from where I stayed. I got a much better view of the wildlife in the hotel parking lot than I did driving through the National Park!

This is a bull (male) elk, in the rut (mating) season. I caught this one in the middle of "bugling". This is a call they use to attract a "harem" of females and to keep other males away. It was a chilly morning, and you can see the plume of condensation from his breath to the left of his head. It sounded like this bull was competing with another one across the street who we could also hear bugling. Soon after I took this picture, he headed off across the road.

Unfortunately I did not take any video for you to hear the bugling. It is a loud and haunting bellowing noise. It was actually a little scary, coming from an animal this large and this close. Below is a YouTube video taken in Banff, which is in the Canadian Rockies. The acoustics of this recording are great.

Audubon's Mammals

I was looking through some old books, and I came across one by John J. Audubon. That is a painting from the book above.

No, I'm not talking about The Birds of America. Many people are familiar with that famous work of Audubon. Not as many people know that after spending more than 19 years painting for this book and working on the companion text (Ornithological Biographies), Audubon decided to tackle mammals next! He figured he could complete this new book in three years - after all, there aren't as many mammals as there are birds, right?

Fifteen years later, the paintings and text were complete for The Viviparous Quadrupeds Of North America. Those are two great SAT words - that means mammals with fours legs that give birth to live young. This nitpicking title let him off the hook for painting marine mammals, bats and humans. Later editions dropped the word "viviparous", maybe after they realized that the only mammals that lay eggs live in Australia. By the time the book was published, Audubon had already passed away, and the work was completed by his sons and his good friend and co-author John Bachman.

I hope I don't surprise anyone by revealing that Audubon didn't always paint live subjects. Here is a great quote from a letter to a collaborator who was planning to ship Audubon some snowshoe hares. This is from the Introduction to a later edition of the book, edited by Victor H. Cahalane: "The animals ought to be put in a Keg of Common Yankee Rum, and as soon as possible after death, cutting a slit in the abdomen of not exceeding Two Inches in length, and pouring Rum in the apperture [sic] until well filled. The Entrails must remain untouched." And be sure not to use Fancy Yankee Rum or Rebel Rum, it just doesn't pickle the hare properly!