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Glorious mud

Female elephant seals wallow in a muddy pool on South Georgia. Despite their sociability they sometimes get annoyed with one other. Like penguins, they went to sea after rearing their young and fed intensively to put on the weight they lost in breeding. Now they have returned to moult. Large chunks of skin and hair peel off their bodies and moulting seems to make them very irritable. It will take a month for them to grow their new coats. Then, when winter closes in, they will return to the sea where they are most at home.

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