ASK CLAUDIO - DISCOVER THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE SCENES
Learn more about the wacky world of underwater marine sex with GREEN PORNO's marine biologist, Dr. Claudio Campagna!
CLICK ON AN ANIMAL TO LEARN MORE:
-
NOSEY SEALS
No doubt, these are most picturesque creatures. Fully-grown males have a pendular nose in the forefront of their big heads, a functional mystery. What service could this outgrowth possibly provide? Is it an embellishment for the eye of females with a weakness for decoration? Is it the quintessential indicator of good genes broadcasted to contenders that know how to read the language of caprice? Mystery of mysteries - the nose of elephant seals.
-
HOT AND COLD
Two species exist today, one in the Pacific coast of California, including the Mexican Peninsula, and the other in the cold waters of the southern hemisphere, dispersed in a dozen islands and one mainland, along the coast of Argentine Patagonia. They look alike, but only to the eye of the non-expert. The experts, on the other hand, argue which species is the weirdest; no doubt, it is the northern.
-
QUITE A FEAT
Elephant seals have a dual personality, one while on land, where they are forced to return once per year to reproduce and vote, and one in the open ocean, where they forage. Some Olympic feats of elephant seals (both, north and south):
- One of the most sexually dimorphic species in the mammalian world: males 5-10 times larger than a female.
- Capable of long fasts while on land: males are capable of fasting three months on land for reproduction - they lose 1,000 kilos (over 2,000 lbs) of blubber while copulating with 150 females.
- Females fast while nursing a pup that weights 40 kg (88 lbs) at birth and 130 kg (287 lbs) three weeks later.
- A record breaking diver, reaching depths of a mile with the humbling attitude of a human that walks round the block for exercising.
- Diving is non-stop. This is worth saying again: they never stop diving, no matter day or night, good or bad weather, shallow or deep oceans, weekdays or weekends. They are always diving, dive to eat and to sleep, to swim from one place to another, way out and way back to land.
-
NUDISTS AND NURSERIES
Elephant seals do not have terrestrial possessions… meaning they do not defend territories. They fight for dominance. A peck order is established among males at the beaches where females give birth. The social scenario is quite changeable in a colony, from being basically a nursery where pups are the protagonists, to being a nudist club of porno stars, where sex overrides maternal instincts.
-
DUTY CALLS
After giving birth to one pup, a female nurses it for three weeks and is off duty. Close to this time, moms become sexually receptive, just for a couple of days. And males know this… do not ask how, but they do. They find this female in estrous among many that may not yet be happy to have sex with a three-ton partner, and mate with her. Females then leave the breeding beaches, pregnant again… not much amusement in the life of a “girl” seal.
-
SEALS CAN BE ORPHANS TOO
Weanlings stay behind, as they are too immature to follow mom. As a matter of fact, they may never see mom again in life. Pups are born in equal numbers of males and females, but mortality is higher in males. Four out of ten weanlings die before they are one year old, and then, those that make it, keep dying… an ordinary habit that living creatures tend to have, would have said the famous Jorge Luis Borges.
-
THE RIGORS OF PREGNANCY
The ocean is the food source for both males and females. While a female is foraging after reproducing, pregnancy reaches a momentary halt: the embryo stops developing while the mother gains weight. A couple of months later, the female must move back to the coast, this time to molt the skin. Molting is not the usual mammalian shedding of hair. Elephant seals shed hair and skin in big pieces, as when one falls asleep in the summer sun for ten mid-days in a row. At the end of the one-month molt, females go back to the ocean for an extended vacation of eight months. Pregnancy continues until the end of the circle finds the beginning of it: it is time to go back to the coast, give birth, nurse, mate… and this is repeated 10-15 times in a lifetime until death visits the poor thing. No chances for a retirement in Florida!
