Elephant Seal Battle

The wide-open mouth of an elephant seal bull is a weapon in mid-swing. Rivals rear up chest to chest and slam down open-mouthed strikes on each other's head, neck, chest and foreflippers, canines slashing across skin as they land. Both animals wear the defense that makes this survivable: a thick, scar-hardened shield of chest and neck skin that absorbs most of the punishment. Encounters like this one at Piedras Blancas are usually brief. Biologists watching fights on California beaches found that two-thirds finished in under 30 seconds, and roughly a third were over within ten.