Elephant Seals Tussle for Territory

Male northern elephant seals face off on the beach by vocalizing through their extended noses, called proboscises. Every winter, when the seals return to the beach where they were born to breed, males arrive first to tussle for territory. The winners of these fights are the "alpha" males, and they get the biggest and best territories. After the beachfront property is divvied among the alpha males, the females arrive for breeding. Learn about how scientists track elephant seals with satellite tags at the Census of Marine Life.

Male northern elephant seals face off for the best beach territory for mating season.
Robert Schwemmer, CINMS, NOAA

comment_wrapper_curve_top

Share your comments here.

* When you click submit, your comment will be added to the queue for review and will be published after approval.

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Filtered words will be replaced with the filtered version of the word.

More information about formatting options

Type the characters you see in this picture. (verify using audio)
Type the characters you see in the picture above; if you can't read them, submit the form and a new image will be generated. Not case sensitive.

comment_wrapper_curve