Intimate secrets of seals exposed

Weddell seals, the only seals in the world which mate under water, have drawn New Zealand scientists to Antarctica to study how they do it.

A Waikato University team is camping on sea ice, near Scott Base, for its fourth consecutive summer to take DNA samples and track the seals swimming below.

The Weddells return each November to Turtle Rock, where tidal cracks in the sea ice allow females to leave the water and deliver their pups.

While mothers and pups soak up the summer sun, males battle for underwater supremacy, says team leader Mark Hindell.

"It's a fierce existence under the ice."

Those males forced to give up the fight, lie on the ice with head gashes, bitten flippers and wounded genitals.

Mr Hindell says the males have a month to set up their territories before females wean their pups, come into oestrus and head for the water to feed.

The team hopes to track males below ice with radio transmitters clipped to their flippers and with surface hydrophones.

The scientists are trying to find out if males with the largest territories do the most mating.

- NZPA