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TESTICULAR TEMPERATURE IN THE SOUTHERN ELEPHANT SEAL, MIROUNGA LEONINA (LINN.)

The testes of the Southern Elephant Seal are extra-abdominal, but each is contained in a separate inguinal pouch and not in a single scrotum; they lie beneath the blubber and against the muscles of the abdomen, and it would appear that their position is fixed as there is no evidence of a tunica dartos, and the rudimentary external cremaster muscle consists of a few weak fibres arising from the obliquus internus abdominis. The testicular temperature might therefore be expected to be close to the body temperature.

Two mature bull elephant seals were immobilized with succinylcholine chloride (Ling & Nicholls, 1963), and the temperature of the testes was measured by cutting through the blubber layer down to the testicular pouch and passing a thermistor probe approximately 4 cm into the testis, which represented approximately the centre of the testis.