[personal profile] sassa_nf 2020-01-21 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
What for? Hunting? Feeding? In pitch black and no sonar? Curious...
ya_miranda: (Default)

[personal profile] ya_miranda 2020-01-21 09:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Mostly hunting. But, if you look close into it, hunting in elephant seals becomes a game where everyone tries to dive deeper and deeper and find a prey in the darkest place. They spend 8 months in the open ocean and have games of their own.
Some young females and some of very young ellies can hunt almost everythere around 1 km deep - they are more streamlined, strong, and able to swim faster than old ellies. But, for a deeper dive, you can find an older female still able to hunt - or a 4000-pound male holding his breath for incredibly long time. They do nothing, just _dive_.

Whales can dive for hunting, singing and breeding, fur seals can travel for longest distanses just for curiousity, and some of them do things for some reasons that humans don't have.)

Diving is kinda thing for elephant seals.)

[personal profile] sassa_nf 2020-01-22 08:55 am (UTC)(link)
Fantastic! If they don't have adaptations for hunting in the complete darkness, then diving to such great depths is just fun / curiosity.

http://www.coml.org/comlfiles/press/CoML_Beyond_Sunlight_11.17.2009_Public.pdf - this one says they measured one seal diving to that depth of 2300+ m.
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[personal profile] ya_miranda 2020-01-22 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
They are adapted well for that, but , after some years of animal's life, it could be done for some other reasons, like curiosity, too. We can't get everything.