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Elephant seals track down prey in the ocean by using their whiskers, a new study of the sea mammals has found.

The creatures spend most of their time fishing in deep parts of the ocean, where light can't get to, and are in complete darkness.

Scientists safely strapped small video cameras with infrared night-vision on five northern elephant seals in California, USA as part of the study.

They found that the seals locate their food by moving their whiskers like satellite antennas to sense water movement.

Scientists observed that at the start of each dive, the seals kept their whiskers held back.

But as they entered darker waters deeper than 200 metres, they pushed their whiskers forward to start helping them sense movement of prey, such as squid and lantern fish.

"Their whiskers are almost like hands reaching out in front of them," said Daniel Costa, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) and a co-author of the report.

"Cats and rats use whiskers to sense air flow, but seals do it underwater to sense water flow," added lead author Taiki Adachi, a marine biologist at UCSC.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.