Only male elephant seals get the large nose the species is named for, and it grows larger the older they are, so you can age a male elephant seal by the size of their proboscis. I don’t know if this guy will end up being the dominant male of the colony this year, but he had the biggest nose of anyone we saw:
Here’s another older male relaxing. Elephant seals washed up on the shore during breeding season often appear dead to unsuspecting humans. Because they don’t eat for the entire months they are on shore, and the males have to expend a lot of calories fighting, and copulating, they pretty much just sleep when they aren’t fighting. They will sleep for 20 minutes or so at a time, then kind of wake up, look around a bit to see what’s going on, then pass back out. Here’s one looking especially comfortable.
Here are a couple of young bachelor seals practicing fighting:
And here is one looking especially silly:
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