"Its name really suits its character. Its trunk really looks like an elephant's," exclaimed Fang Youqun.
It was also the first time that Xiang Yang saw this kind of seal. Although the Southern elephant seal has no hair on its body, it is extremely cold-resistant. In addition, they are second-class protected animals, so there is no such seal in the Maritime University.
Seeing that Xiang Yang didn't say anything, Xia Pengjie took the initiative to explain to Fang Youqun: "Yes, the elephant seal is indeed named after its nose. They are the largest seals in the world. Although they have a wide range of habitats in the open ocean, they only breed in seven main habitats. Four of these seven main habitats are on the islands off California."
Xiang Yang looked at Xia Pengjie in surprise, "How do you know so much about elephant seals? Have you seen them before?"
Xia Pengjie blushed and said quickly: "No, I saw it in a book."
Xiang Yang nodded to show that he understood.
In fact, Xiang Yang is quite familiar with creatures like seals.
Elephant seals are actually very cold-resistant. The reason why humans often see them on the beach is that elephant seals shed their skin every summer.
The molting period for elephant seals usually lasts up to one month, during which time they shed most of their fur and skin.
During the molting period, when elephant seals are least able to withstand the cold, they stay on the beach to maintain their body temperature until new fur grows.
In addition, the extremely gentle phenomenon seen by humans as elephant seals lying motionless on the beach is just an illusion of the elephant seals.
Real elephant seals are actually extremely ferocious, and males will fight each other to determine who is their leader.
Just like when male lions compete for the leadership of a lion pack, the victor usually does not kill the loser, but only beats the loser all over the body.
Elephant seals prey on more than 30 species of fish and cephalopods, including squid, octopus, hagfish, porbeagles, and small sharks.
Most elephant seals are diurnal and forage in the pelagic zone, spending long periods of time in the water.
Like sea lions, elephant seals are also good divers. Most elephant seals can dive to a depth of 300 to 800 meters, and the deepest can reach 1,500 meters.
In the entire Antarctic, elephant seals are one of the few marine predators that do not feed primarily on krill.
It’s not that elephant seals don’t eat Antarctic krill, but that elephant seals can’t catch Antarctic krill.
Because elephant seals rarely forage in water less than 200 meters deep.
In addition, the diving time is relatively long, with males averaging about 20 minutes and females shorter, and they need to rest for about 3 minutes between each dive.
Of course, nothing is absolute. The record for the deepest diving by an elephant seal is held by a female elephant seal, who took 119 minutes to dive to 1,603 meters.
In addition, elephant seals have a very strange habit.
When on land, elephant seals usually gather in groups, ranging from dozens to thousands.
But elephant seals do not prey on social animals.
To evaluate whether a creature is a social animal, it mainly depends on whether they can cooperate when hunting and defending against enemies.
But elephant seals travel alone in the water when foraging for food and defending against enemies.
When an elephant seal catches a huge Antarctic icefish on the seabed, they will drag the icefish back to the shore to enjoy it alone. The leftovers will be discarded on the spot or thrown back into the sea, and will not be left for their companions.
When an elephant seal is being hunted by a great white shark or a killer whale, other elephant seals will definitely not come to the rescue.
In late spring and early winter, northern elephant seals store large amounts of food as fat and spend the winter on the ground.
Gao Chuang suddenly sighed at this time, "This is actually a very pitiful creature."
"What do you mean?" Xiang Yang asked puzzledly.
"When I was young, there were a lot of these seals. Now they are rarely seen," Gao Chuang sighed.
Xiang Yang frowned, he felt that what Gao Chuang said was wrong.
As far as Xiang Yang knows, before humans came into contact with the ocean, there were a large number of elephant seals in the ocean.
However, due to the large body, high oil production and smooth fur of the elephant seal, it was loved by people all over Europe and therefore suffered the disaster of being killed.
Especially in the early 18th century, the development of the machinery industry promoted the establishment of the oil refining industry.
At that time, people hunted and killed elephant seals indiscriminately in order to obtain the oil from their bodies.
By the 1760s, only 100 elephant seals were left, and they were on the verge of extinction.
But since many countries in the world issued an absolute ban on the hunting of elephant seals in 1922, the number of elephant seals has skyrocketed again.
By 1930, elephant seals had even reappeared in U.S. waters, at which time the U.S. immediately placed them under protection.
By 1957, Mexico and the United States had jointly established a safe zone for elephant seals of approximately 4 square kilometers, and there are now more than 20,000 elephant seals.
From the time Gao Chuang was young until now, the number of elephant seals should have been increasing day by day. How is it possible that they were often seen in the past but are so rare now
What Xiang Yang didn’t know was that at the end of the 20th century, under the tough protection measures of the United States, the number of elephant seals rose to more than 100,000.
But after entering the 21st century, elephant seals encountered a population bottleneck.
Wild elephant seals are very susceptible to disease and pollution. Due to environmental influences, although no one kills elephant seals anymore, their number is still decreasing day by day.
Just as Xiang Yang was thinking about this, the elephant seal in the sea suddenly rushed out of the water, its fat body standing above the water, and its two front legs slapped the water hard, causing a huge wave under the side of the ship.
"I'll go."
The crew members quickly hid back.
This is not an ordinary time. If it gets wet, it gets wet. In this damn weather, if my clothes are wet by this elephant seal, I'm afraid they won't dry even after a week.
However, the elephant seal did not stop its movements. After slapping the sea surface twice with its front flippers, it dived suddenly into the sea, then quickly surfaced, and with the help of the huge impact of surfacing, it jumped out of the sea in an instant.
Although this elephant seal is very fat, after rushing out of the sea, it is like a brave and light swallow. Its body is extremely flexible and agile, and it jumps more than two meters out of the water.
Then it fell back into the water like a diver, stood up again, half of its body floated out of the water, and looked at everyone on the boat with a silly look on its face.
"Brother Yang, do you think this elephant seal wants to climb onto our boat?" Fang Youqun asked Xiang Yang in confusion.
Xiang Yang nodded, "Very likely."