While reading Dive! Dive! Dive!, Wired magazine’s recent list of “milestones on the voyage to the bottom of the sea,” I came across what looked like a mistake:
5,187 feet: Maximum diving depth of the elephant seal.
Here are a few facts (from the same list) that put it into perspective:
660 feet: Maximum diving depth of the Pacific white-sided dolphin.
1,010 feet: Scuba-diving record set by Brit diver John Bennett in 2001.
1,640 feet: Maximum diving depth of the blue whale.
1,969 feet: Maximum diving depth of nuclear-powered attack subs.
3,281 feet: Maximum diving depth of the sperm whale. To navigate in the darkness, these whales emit high pitched sounds and use echoes to determine the location of prey.
Sealexperience.com, “the comprehensive website for the Northern Elephant Seal,” more-or-less corroborates that diving depth — and shares a few more factoids:
- Elephant seals are big. The largest known Elephant seal is 18 feet (about 2 car lengths), weighing 6000 pounds (2 large trucks). They are the largest pinniped in the world, even bigger than the walrus.
- Elephant seals are the most sexually dimorphic of all mammals. An alpha bull will mate with up to 50 females.
- Elephant Seals will go without food for three months during the mating season.
- Elephant Seals migrate further than any other mammal in the world, traveling over 6000 miles.
- Elephant Seals are pelagic, they spend 80-90% of their time underwater.
- Elephant Seals are amazing divers. They are the deepest divers in the ocean, with a maximum depth recorded at 5,015 feet.
- Elephant Seals can hold their breath longer than any other mammal. They typically dive up to 20 minutes, but can stay underwater for more than 80 minutes. That’s a record for mammals.