Editing Elephant seal (section)

{{Short description|Genus of aquatic carnivores}}
{{Redirect|Sea elephant|the superfamily of sea slugs|Pterotracheoidea}}

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{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}}
{{automatic taxobox
| name = Elephant seals
| image = See elefanten edit.jpg
| image_caption = Male and female [[northern elephant seal]]s
| image2 = 091201 south georgia 3671 (4172629015).jpg
| image2_caption = Male and female [[southern elephant seal]]s
| taxon = Mirounga
| parent_authority = Muizon, 1981
| authority = [[John Edward Gray|Gray]], 1827
| type_species = ''[[Mirounga leonina|Phoca leonina]]''
| subdivision_ranks = [[Species]]
| subdivision = *''[[northern elephant seal|M. angustirostris]]''
*''[[southern elephant seal|M. leonina]]''
}}

'''Elephant seals''' or '''sea elephants''' are very large, oceangoing [[earless seal]]s in the [[genus]] '''''Mirounga'''''. Both species, the [[northern elephant seal]] (''M. angustirostris'') and the [[southern elephant seal]] (''M. leonina''), were hunted to the brink of extinction for lamp oil by the end of the 19th century, but their numbers have since recovered. They can weigh up to {{convert|4000|kg|lb}}. Despite their name, elephant seals are not closely related to [[elephant]]s, and the large [[proboscis]] or [[Elephant trunk|trunk]] that males of the species possess is an example of [[Convergent evolution|convergent evolution]]. 

The northern elephant seal, somewhat smaller than its southern relative, ranges over the [[Pacific]] coast of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The most northerly breeding location on the Pacific Coast is at [[Race Rocks Marine Protected Area]], at the southern tip of [[Vancouver Island]] in the [[Strait of Juan de Fuca]]. The southern elephant seal is found in the [[Southern Hemisphere]] on islands such as [[South Georgia]] and [[Macquarie Island]], and on the coasts of New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa, and Argentina in the [[Peninsula Valdés]]. In southern Chile, there is a small colony of 120 animals at Jackson Bay (''Bahía Jackson'') in  [[Admiralty Sound (Tierra del Fuego)|Admiralty Sound]] (''Seno Almirantazgo'') on the southern coast of [[Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://programs.wcs.org/chile/Especies/Elefantes-marinos.aspx|title=WCS Chile > Especies > Elefantes marinos|website=programs.wcs.org|access-date=2016-05-27}}</ref>

The oldest known unambiguous elephant seal fossils are fragmentary fossils of a member of the tribe Miroungini described from the late [[Pliocene]] [[Petane Formation]] of New Zealand.<ref name="NZJGG">{{cite journal |year=2016 |title=The origin of elephant seals: implications of a fragmentary late Pliocene seal (Phocidae: Miroungini) from New Zealand |journal=New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics |volume=59 |issue=4 |pages=544–550 |doi=10.1080/00288306.2016.1199437 |last1=Boessenecker |first1=RW |last2=Churchill |first2=M |bibcode=2016NZJGG..59..544B |s2cid=133343398 }}</ref> Teeth originally identified as representing an unnamed species of ''Mirounga'' have been found in South Africa, and dated to the [[Miocene]] epoch;<ref>{{cite journal |author1=[[Martin Pickford|Pickford, Martin]] |author2=[[Brigitte Senut|Senut, Brigitte]] |year=1997 |title=Cainozoic mammals from coastal Namaqualand, South Africa |journal=Palaeontologia Africana |volume=34 |pages=199–217 |hdl=10539/16409}}</ref><ref name="Berta2012">{{cite journal |author1=Berta, A.  |author2=Churchill, M. | year = 2012 | title = Pinniped Taxonomy: evidence for species and subspecies | journal = Mammal Review | volume = 42 | issue = 3 | pages = 207–234 | doi = 10.1111/j.1365-2907.2011.00193.x}}</ref> however, Boessenecker and Churchill (2016) considered these teeth almost certainly to be misidentified [[toothed whale]] (odontocete) teeth.<ref name="NZJGG" /> The elephant seals evolved in the Pacific Ocean during the Pliocene period.<ref name="NZJGG" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Rule|first1=James P.|last2=Adams|first2=Justin W.|last3=Rovinsky|first3=Douglass S.|last4=Hocking|first4=David P.|last5=Evans|first5=Alistair R.|last6=Fitzgerald|first6=Erich M. G.|date=November 2020|title=A new large-bodied Pliocene seal with unusual cutting teeth|journal=Royal Society Open Science|language=en|volume=7|issue=11|pages=201591|doi=10.1098/rsos.201591|pmid=33391813|pmc=7735334|bibcode=2020RSOS....701591R|issn=2054-5703|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Rule|first1=James P.|last2=Adams|first2=Justin W.|last3=Marx|first3=Felix G.|last4=Evans|first4=Alistair R.|last5=Tennyson|first5=Alan J. D.|last6=Scofield|first6=R. Paul|last7=Fitzgerald|first7=Erich M. G.|date=2020-11-11|title=First monk seal from the Southern Hemisphere rewrites the evolutionary history of true seals|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences|volume=287|issue=1938|pages=20202318|doi=10.1098/rspb.2020.2318|pmid=33171079|pmc=7735288|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Elephant seals breed annually and are seemingly habitual to colonies that have established breeding areas.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000554|pmid=19593366|title=Rapid Response of a Marine Mammal Species to Holocene Climate and Habitat Change|journal=PLOS Genetics|volume=5|issue=7|pages=e1000554|year=2009|last1=De Bruyn|first1=Mark|last2=Hall|first2=Brenda L.|last3=Chauke|first3=Lucas F.|last4=Baroni|first4=Carlo|last5=Koch|first5=Paul L.|last6=Hoelzel|first6=A. Rus|pmc=2700269 |doi-access=free }}</ref>