Abstract
Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) are large, sexually dimorphic, polygynous pinnipeds that breed on islands off the coasts of California and Baja California, Mexico (Stewart and Huber, 1991). Pregnant females (=cows) arrive at rookery beaches from December through early February; each gives birth to a single pup which it nurses for about 28 days before mating and returning to sea (Stewart 1989). Adult males (=bulls) arrive in December and early January and establish social hierarchies according to age and size while they compete among themselves for access to estrous females. These dominance hierarchies are established and maintained primarily by stylized visual and vocal threat displays, but bulls do occasionally engage in prolonged physical battles (Le Boeuf and Peterson, 1969; Shipley, 1981; Stewart and Huber, 1992). Threat vocalizations consist of sequences of pulsed syllables, called claps (Bartholomew and Collias, 1962; Shipley et al., 1981, 1986), delivered at relatively constant rates.
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Shipley, C., Stewart, B.S., Bass, J. (1992). Seismic Communication in Northern Elephant Seals. In: Thomas, J.A., Kastelein, R.A., Supin, A.Y. (eds) Marine Mammal Sensory Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3406-8_35
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3406-8_35
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