Mesonychoteuthis vs. elephant seal

[Sordes]

After looking at some of the animal-face-offs, I thought about a hypotethical confrontation of Mesonychoteuthis with an elephant seal. Both live in antarctic waters and large specimens of messy are as big or even bigger than female elephant seals. Is there any indication that such a confrontation could happen? In general I don´t very like such theoretical face-offs, but in this case I´m really interested. Does anybody know what are the largest cephalopods in the diet of elephant seals? It would be really interesting to see such a confrontation, because both opponents would be much closer in size than mesonychoteuthis and sperm whale. What do you think?

 

[chrono_war01]

Consering that the Messie has hooks and all, the Messie would win if it strikes first, but if the Seal get's to lash out first from the mantle...that would change the results, me thinks.

But I'm not expert, I'm just guessing.

 

[Sordes]

I don´t kow...the hooks of messie aren´t very big and elephant seals have a very hard skin which is additionally uncovered with huge layers of blubber.

 

[chrono_war01]

As long as the seal is hooked onto it, the squid may swim back into the depths, dragging the seal around, and once it's hooked, it has limited mobility.

 

[Sordes]

I think it is dependent of the size difference. Perhaps a large messie could drag a female elephant seal, but could it also drag a bull of several tons?

 

[cuttlegirl]

Well elephant seals can hold their breath for about 2 hours and dive to 5000 feet, so it might be an interesting pairing... They also have VERY strong jaws (I know from personal experience ). They are not particularly bright and probably a Messie could swim faster... will have to do some reading...

 

[Cephkid]

I would say almost certainly Messie, but I can't tell if I think that, or if it's just 'cause I like Messie so much...

 

[chrono_war01]

Well elephant seals can hold their breath for about 2 hours and dive to 5000 feet, so it might be an interesting pairing... They also have VERY strong jaws (I know from personal experience ). They are not particularly bright and probably a Messie could swim faster... will have to do some reading...

What are they doing at 5000 feet? Is there even enough fish down there to be worth going down at that depth? And what are they hunting down there?

 

[monty]

What are they doing at 5000 feet? Is there even enough fish down there to be worth going down at that depth? And what are they hunting down there?

Yeah, and seals don't have sonar, and they certainly can't see much down there... do they just hunt bioluminescent stuff? I didn't know any seal-family critters had the same "dive to great depths" adaptations that cetaceans do...

Anyway, my is on the squid...

 

[erich orser]

My money is probably with the seal - especially a big, belligerent bull. Those things are meaner than sin, some of the deepest-diving mammals alive, and live on a massive ceph-diet. Could be a close fight, however. When Rebecca was a child, they'd have to close the beach down the street from her house in Cambria because those guys would pull themselves up on the beach and chase people down. Nasty, big ugly critters with horrendous halitosis! And such a beautiful singing voice, too!

 

[sorseress]

I'm interested in knowing what cuttlegirl knows "from personal experience" about the strength of the jaws of elephant seals? When and where did you learn about this "up close and personal", and what light can you bring to bear on this question because of your experience?

 

[OB]

Do you mean to imply CG once dated an elephant seal? I have to admit, then when I'm on the beach, people do tend to hose me down and try to push me back into the water, but I always thought that to be a pretty unique predicament....

In this moeity I never ran accross Dr. SOS with his endoscope, I'm happy to say, thank you very much....

 

[Sordes]

Seals have very good senses. At first they have big eyes which enable them to see still in comparably deep water, but they aren´t nececary as blind seals have no problems to hunt. Their whiskers are highly sensitive, they can even feel the small whirls in the water a small fish has caused a half hour ago. Furthermore they have a very fierce carnivore set of teeth. I´ve once seen in a documentation how a sea lion teared a young sunfish with a length of about 40cm or so literally to pieces, and sunfish have a very thick and hard skin.

 

[sorseress]

AH, but can they play jazz piano?

 

[cuttlegirl]

Originally posted by ChronoWarWhat are they doing at 5000 feet? Is there even enough fish down there to be worth going down at that depth? And what are they hunting down there?

There are some theories as to why they dive so deep... They do have very good eyesight and their whiskers (vibrissae) have nerves in them, so they are very sensitive. They do eat a variety of cephalopods. Typically they will dive for a long period of time (about 1/2-1 hour), return to the surface for 3-4 minutes and then dive again. They are either avoiding competition for food or avoiding predators or maybe both...