Some of the seals are centuries old, preserved by the dry Antarctica air.

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Published: Monday, 07 October 2024 at 12:32 PM

On Antarctica’s Lake Bonney, plunked on top of a layer of ice, there lies a long-dead seal.

This seal is many miles from the coast, where his living relatives are diving, hunting and sliding around. His yellowing body is on its back, flippers in the air, as if to say, “Why did I come here again?” 

Most non-microscopic creatures don’t enter the McMurdo Dry Valleys – after all, there isn’t much for them here.

But since the early 20th century, human visitors to the valleys have repeatedly stumbled across the mummified carcasses of seals, often very far from the shores they’re meant to frequent.

It’s unclear where these lonely pinnipeds were scooting off to, or why. One member of the Robert Scott’s 1901 Discovery expedition, Edward Wilson, reported the remains of “old seals” on the tops of high glaciers and wrote that they must be retiring there to die in peace.

Newer observations suggest that most of the mummified seals are young. Currently, the leading theory is that they got disoriented during snowstorms and wandered into the desert instead of back to shore. 

A straight line of tracks found behind one mummy suggests a seal hell-bent on wherever she thought she was going – an idea bolstered by stories of two Antarctic teams who have seen seals headed into the McMurdo Dry Valleys and tried in vain to point them back in the right direction.

After the seals die, the dry climate preserves their bodies until the wind disintegrates them. During a recent study, researchers found and examined hundreds of mummified seals in the Dry Valleys and found that some had been there for centuries – monuments to their own mistakes.

How can you see them? There is a mummified seal outside Discovery Hut in McMurdo Sound. For others, find someone who has seen one and ask them where to go.

This article is excerpted from Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders by Joshua Foer & Cara Giaimo. Workman Publishing, 2024.