Leopard Seal's Twenty-Day Postmortem Care

In 2025, University of Rhode Island researchers Emily Sperou and Renato Borras-Chavez published the first documented observations of mother leopard seals caring for dead offspring in Patagonia, Chile. The behavior, dubbed postmortem attentive behavior, or PAB, involved nuzzling the bodies, carrying the bodies in their mouths, guarding them and moving them between ice floes. One mother spent 20 days with her pup’s corpse, the longest PAB episode recorded, and one of the longest documented in any mammal. “The oxytocin released after birth may extend the maternal bond,” the researchers said, but they could not say if the seals were grieving.

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