Article content For elephant seals – one of the most distinctive of the 33 species that comprise the world’s seal family – it is hard work to stay fat. Scientists have conducted the most thorough study to date of the unique feeding behavior of northern elephant seals, focusing on the females of the species during arduous two-month post-breeding migrations in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or For deep-diving elephant seals, it takes lots of work to stay fat Back to video The seals were found to spend upwards of 20 hours every day – and sometimes a full 24 hours – in continuous deep-diving to feed on multitudes of small fish, rather than the larger prey favored by other deep-diving marine mammals, to gain the body fat essential for successful reproduction and insulation in the frigid depths. They fed 1,000 to 2,000 times daily.