Seal mums can recognise their pup's cry within its first 1-2 days

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-12-22 11:01

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About one to two days after giving birth, a seal mum can already tell the sound of her pup's cry apart from others in the colony, according to international research. The team played recordings of 22 different pups to northern elephant seal mothers to see how strongly they responded. Even early after birth the researchers say the seals responded more strongly to their own offspring, which is an important factor in the survival of a densely-populated species where there are plenty of other pups to be confused with. The researchers say seals that were more responsive to their offspring weaned seals of higher mass.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Shouty seals – Seal mothers can’t ignore the demanding cries of their offspring. Recordings of pup calls were played to 22 northern elephant seal mothers – the seals responded more strongly to calls from their own pup than to similar aged, but unrelated pups, even as soon as one to two days post-birth. The authors say this ability to identify their young leads to increased survivorship of offspring, which is particularly important in densely-populated colonies.

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Research The Royal Society, Web page The URL will go live after the embargo ends

Journal/
conference: Biology Letters

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of California Santa Cruz, USA

Funder: Funding was provided to J.L. by the Fyssen Foundation.

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