Word Study
sea elephant
CIDE DICTIONARY
sea elephant,
A very large seal (Macrorhinus proboscideus ) of the Antarctic seas, much hunted for its oil. It sometimes attains a length of thirty feet, and is remarkable for the prolongation of the nose of the adult male into an erectile elastic proboscis, about a foot in length. Another species of smaller size (M. angustirostris ) occurs on the coast of Lower California, but is now nearly extinct. [1913 Webster]
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