Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Phocidae > Mirounga > Mirounga angustirostris

Mirounga angustirostris (Northern Elephant Seal; northern sea elephant)

Synonyms: Macrorhinus angustirostris
Language: Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) is one of two species of elephant seal (the other is the southern elephant seal). It is a member of the family Phocidae ("true seals"). Elephant seals derive their name from their great size and from the male's large proboscis, which is used in making extraordinarily loud roaring noises, especially during the mating competition. Sexual dimorphism in size is great: The males can grow to 14 ft (4 m) and 5,000 lb (2,300 kg), while the females grow to 11 ft (3 m) and 1,400 lb (640 kg). Correspondingly, the mating system is highly polygynous; a successful male is able to impregnate up to 50 females in one season.
View Wikipedia Record: Mirounga angustirostris

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
5
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
27
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 11.17
EDGE Score: 2.5
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Gestation [3]  8 months 12 days
Litter Size [3]  1
Litters / Year [3]  1
Maximum Longevity [5]  20 years
Migration [1]  Intracontinental
Nocturnal [1]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [5]  15.941 feet (486 cm)
Water Biome [1]  Pelagic, Coastal
Weaning [3]  26 days
Adult Weight [2]  1.653 tons (1,500.00 kg)
Birth Weight [3]  82.674 lbs (37.50 kg)
Female Weight [2]  1,543.244 lbs (700.00 kg)
Male Weight [2]  2.535 tons (2,300.00 kg)
Weight Dimorphism [2]  228.6 %
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Fish [4]  40 %
Diet - Invertibrates [4]  60 %
Forages - Marine [4]  100 %
Female Maturity [3]  3 years
Male Maturity [3]  5 years

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Carcharodon carcharias (Maneater shark)[2]
Orcinus orca (Killer Whale)[9]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2Mirounga angustirostris, Brent S. Stewart and Harriet R. Huber, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 449, pp. 1-10 (1993)
♦ 3de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 4Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 5Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 6Szoboszlai AI, Thayer JA, Wood SA, Sydeman WJ, Koehn LE (2015) Forage species in predator diets: synthesis of data from the California Current. Ecological Informatics 29(1): 45-56. Szoboszlai AI, Thayer JA, Wood SA, Sydeman WJ, Koehn LE (2015) Data from: Forage species in predator diets: synthesis of data from the California Current. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 7CephBase - Cephalopod (Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautilus) Database
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 9Food Web Relationships of Northern Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca : a Synthesis of the Available Knowledge, Charles A. Simenstad, Bruce S. Miller, Carl F. Nyblade, Kathleen Thornburgh, and Lewis J. Bledsoe, EPA-600 7-29-259 September 1979
♦ 10Nunn, C. L., and S. Altizer. 2005. The Global Mammal Parasite Database: An Online Resource for Infectious Disease Records in Wild Primates. Evolutionary Anthroplogy 14:1-2.
♦ 11Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0