Word: patagonica
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JOSEPH LAUTNER JR. 11 years old Berlin Not- to Bremen but to Hamburg's famed Hagenbeck Menagerie the Berlin Zoo telephoned its order, obtained a 17-ft. bull elephant seal (Mirunga patagonica) to be Roland II.-ED. Coed & Principles Sirs...
Goliath and Roland were Southern Sea Elephants or Elephant Seals (Mirunga patagonica), an immensely overgrown genus of seal whose adult males grow a short, useless proboscis. They breed on lonely southern islands, the Falklands off South America, Kerguelen off the Cape of Good Hope, the Macquaries off Australia, commute to the Antarctic ice pack. On the breeding beaches they flip sand on their backs and sleep, not to be disturbed even by man. Lazy and languid bulls fight with none of the ferocity of smaller seals. Delivered alive at a zoo, they fetch from $5,000 to $10,000 apiece...
...Ringling called at the White House, casually mentioned to President Coolidge that he had a sea elephant in the show. Mr. Coolidge nodded his head, went to see for himself. He discovered that the sea elephant is just an overgrown species of seal (Mirunga leoninus or patagonica), carnivorous, mammalian, with a flexible proboscis, hind limbs so rudimentary that they look like a big tail; broad, flat for ward flippers for swimming and spanking the young. For Mr. Coolidge's pleasure Goliath I devoured 50 Ib. of herring. Six months later a shark got into his enclosure off Sarasota...
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