Fun Fact #1: Elephant seal blood has a high haemoglobin content (to help them make long, oxygen deprived, dives) which makes their blood BRIGHT red.

Fun Fact #2: This results in some pretty striking colours when blood is spilled. We tried to replicate it in the comic, but nothing matches the original (see below).

Elephant seals have the highest blood volume of any mammal. Their blood is also PACKED with haemoglobin to carry oxygen for long dives, giving it a bright red colour.

This results in …impressive… scenes when one gets injured. 🥴😬 https://t.co/Skjm5plDzz

— Natalie Dyer 🐳 (@natdyerwild) September 22, 2021

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Tanya Strydom is a PhD student at the Université de Montréal, mostly focusing on how we can use machine learning and artificial intelligence in ecology. Current research interests include (but are not limited to) predicting ecological networks, the role species traits and scale in ecological networks, general computer (and maths) geekiness, and a (seemingly) ever growing list of side projects. Tweets (sometimes related to actual science) can be found @TanyaS_08.