{"id":771733,"date":"2026-06-30T19:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/771733\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T19:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:56:11","slug":"look-california-elephant-seals-unusual-purple-coloration-caused-by-algae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/771733\/","title":{"rendered":"Look: California elephant seal&#8217;s unusual purple coloration caused by algae"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">June 30 (UPI) &#8212; Experts at a California state park said a seal spotted with a mysterious purple hue got its unusual coloration from algae.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The elephant seal was seen recently at A\u00f1o Nuevo State Park&#8217;s Bight Beach with a coloration that park officials said looked &#8220;like it took a bath in grape juice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Park officials said theories about the cause of the seal&#8217;s unusual hue included a diet of purple sea urchins and possible internal bleeding, but seal experts revealed the true cause was algae.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Resting on red algae on the beach has given this seal it&#8217;s striking appearance, just in time for summer,&#8221; officials wrote<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DaGCJD-ALcC\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;ig_rid=AE56S_OGxOWJjAmW0QYrazY\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:on Instagram.;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;on Instagram.&quot;}\" class=\"link \"> on Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 30 (UPI) &#8212; Experts at a California state park said a seal spotted with a mysterious purple&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[199826,49,273959,48,273957,273961,14151,83723,273958,273960,66],"class_list":["post-771733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ano-nuevo-state-park","tag-ca","tag-california-state-park","tag-canada","tag-elephant-seal","tag-grape-juice","tag-internal-bleeding","tag-park-officials","tag-purple-sea-urchins","tag-red-algae","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}