Interspecies communication

From the New Yorker:

When Paul Nicklen, a biologist and photographer for National Geographic, decided to travel to Antarctica to document the leopard seal, a large, aggressive animal that dominates the Antarctic waters, he didn’t realize he would be getting one of the best shots of his career. Leopard seals are imposing, even frightening. They’re sexually dimorphic—the females are larger than the males by up to thirty per cent—and they weigh in excess of eleven hundred pounds. In 2003, a British scientist named Kristy Brown was snorkeling in the Antarctic and was fatally pulled underwater by one. “With its massive serpentine body, reptilian head, and sinister black eyes, the leopard seal looks positively prehistoric,” writes Nicklen in his new book “Polar Obsession.” Yet leopard seals are often unfairly cast as villains; their gait and playfulness can often be mistaken for aggression. (Investigators of Brown’s death believe the seal had been trapped inland all winter and was starving.) Nicklen was determined to capture a different side of the animal, one that demonstrates their intelligence and capacity to interact with humans. In the video below, Nicklen describes an incredible four-day experience with an enormous female leopard seal (she was roughly thirteen feet long and three feet wide), which created one of the most compelling chapters in his new book.

This video speaks for itself: