“It’s interesting to see such variation in a relatively small number of animals. However, the research team recorded the longest and deepest dive ever recorded for leopard seals made by a male nicknamed “Deadpool,” who dove to 1,256 meters for 25 minutes.
Leopard seals of both sexes are short, shallow divers-diving to an average of 30 meters and taking three-minute-long dives. Another seal, however, traveled 1,700 km during that same period away from the tagging location, swimming to an island more than a thousand kilometers away.One seal only traveled 46 km from where the team worked with the seal, staying in and around islands off the Antarctic Peninsula.Male and female leopard seals swim short and long distances in both coastal and open-ocean habitats.
It’s a short period to spend with their pups because the leopard seal is doing all of these really energetically demanding things without any food.
The team measured one of the largest leopard seals ever, an adult female they nicknamed “Bigonia,” who weighed 540 kg (1,190 lbs.).They weighed and measured each seal and followed each seal’s activities and dive patterns using satellite/GPS tags. Over the course of two years, the research group studied 22 leopard seals off the Western Antarctic Peninsula, an area rapidly warming and changing. (Sonoma State University), the PIs and Kienle (a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher at the time) set out with one shared goal: to learn more about leopard seals. (NOAA), and professor Daniel Crocker, Ph.D. (Colorado State University), wildlife biologist Mike Goebel, Ph.D. (Baylor), professor Shane Kanatous, Ph.D. In a first-of-its-kind study funded by the National Science Foundation awarded to professor Daniel Costa (lead PI UCSC), associate professor Stephen Trumble, Ph.D.
The combination of the extreme climate in Antarctica, the species’ solitary habits and their lethal reputation makes leopard seals one of the most difficult top predators to study on Earth. These prehistoric, reptilian-looking seals are often portrayed as scary villains in movies such as “Happy Feet” and “Eight Below,” but little is known about their basic biology. 26, 2022) – Baylor University marine biologist Sarah Kienle, Ph.D., has always been fascinated by leopard seals.