The female seal said 'local son'

The fastidious Antarctic seals are ready to go long distances to find the right mate.

While the males are passive and sit in a waiting place, the females are very strict and ready to go on a long journey to find an ideal partner to be a father to their children.

"A lot of mammals have reproductive patterns in which males compete to gain the right to have sex with waiting passive girls," said Dr. Joe Hoffman at Cambridge University in England. "So it is not only surprising to see that the seals are very careful, but it also shows that children are more proactive in nature than they think."

Hoffman and scientists at the Antarctic Survey found the unusual pattern of reproduction when studying the maritime community on the island in South Georgia.

In order to avoid relationships with locally inactive males, female seals go as far as 35 m to find a healthy mate. They evaluate their partners through physical, behavioral and even smells.

"The behaviors we observed will impact the genetic diversity of the seal population and may have helped them recover successfully when almost extinct 100 years ago," Hoffman said. "On the contrary, this behavior also helps them cope with future challenges when climate changes."

MT