Elephant seals

Elephant seals are large, oceangoing seals in the genus Mirounga. There are two species: the Northern Elephant Seal (M. angustirostris) and the Southern Elephant Seal (M. leonina). Both were hunted to the brink of extinction by the end of the nineteenth century, but numbers have since recovered. The Northern Elephant Seal, somewhat smaller than its southern relative, ranges over the Pacific coast of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The Southern Elephant Seal is found in the southern hemisphere on islands such as South Georgia, Macquarie Island, and on the coasts of New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina in the Peninsula Valdes, which is the fourth largest elephant seal colony in the world.