Three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf
During their long migrations through the Pacific, northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris , never haul out on land and they rarely spend more than a few minutes at a time at the surface. They are almost constantly making repetitive, deep dives, raising the question of when do they rest? One...
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crroyalsociety:10.1098/rsbl.2009.0719 2024-06-02T08:06:02+00:00 Three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf Mitani, Yoko Andrews, Russel D. Sato, Katsufumi Kato, Akiko Naito, Yasuhiko Costa, Daniel P. 2009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0719 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0719 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0719 en eng The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ Biology Letters volume 6, issue 2, page 163-166 ISSN 1744-9561 1744-957X journal-article 2009 crroyalsociety https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0719 2024-05-07T14:16:33Z During their long migrations through the Pacific, northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris , never haul out on land and they rarely spend more than a few minutes at a time at the surface. They are almost constantly making repetitive, deep dives, raising the question of when do they rest? One type of dive, the drift dive, characterized by a time-depth profile with a phase of lower than average descent speed is believed to be a resting dive. To examine the behaviour of seals during drift dives, we measured body position and three-dimensional diving paths of six juvenile seals. We found that seals rolled over and sank on their backs during the drift phase, wobbling periodically so that they resembled a falling leaf. This enabled seals to drastically slow their descent rate, possibly so that negatively buoyant seals can rest without ending up in the abyss. This reduces the work required to return to the surface to breath, and allows them time to rest, process food or possibly sleep during the descent phase of these dives where they are probably less susceptible to predation. Article in Journal/Newspaper Elephant Seals The Royal Society Pacific Biology Letters 6 2 163 166 |
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Open Polar |
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The Royal Society |
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crroyalsociety |
language |
English |
description |
During their long migrations through the Pacific, northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris , never haul out on land and they rarely spend more than a few minutes at a time at the surface. They are almost constantly making repetitive, deep dives, raising the question of when do they rest? One type of dive, the drift dive, characterized by a time-depth profile with a phase of lower than average descent speed is believed to be a resting dive. To examine the behaviour of seals during drift dives, we measured body position and three-dimensional diving paths of six juvenile seals. We found that seals rolled over and sank on their backs during the drift phase, wobbling periodically so that they resembled a falling leaf. This enabled seals to drastically slow their descent rate, possibly so that negatively buoyant seals can rest without ending up in the abyss. This reduces the work required to return to the surface to breath, and allows them time to rest, process food or possibly sleep during the descent phase of these dives where they are probably less susceptible to predation. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Mitani, Yoko Andrews, Russel D. Sato, Katsufumi Kato, Akiko Naito, Yasuhiko Costa, Daniel P. |
spellingShingle |
Mitani, Yoko Andrews, Russel D. Sato, Katsufumi Kato, Akiko Naito, Yasuhiko Costa, Daniel P. Three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf |
author_facet |
Mitani, Yoko Andrews, Russel D. Sato, Katsufumi Kato, Akiko Naito, Yasuhiko Costa, Daniel P. |
author_sort |
Mitani, Yoko |
title |
Three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf |
title_short |
Three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf |
title_full |
Three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf |
title_fullStr |
Three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf |
title_full_unstemmed |
Three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf |
title_sort |
three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0719 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0719 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0719 |
geographic |
Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Pacific |
genre |
Elephant Seals |
genre_facet |
Elephant Seals |
op_source |
Biology Letters volume 6, issue 2, page 163-166 ISSN 1744-9561 1744-957X |
op_rights |
https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0719 |
container_title |
Biology Letters |
container_volume |
6 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
163 |
op_container_end_page |
166 |
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1800750916334256128 |