How many valid species of fossil Phocidae (earless seals) are known? It was 47 in 2019, but I assume that this number have changed since then. Paleobiodb.org seems to be missing this data, as I have tried to check.
Thank You!
Hi Márton,
I've just submitted a manuscript that includes an updated table of pinniped fossil occurrences. Once the manuscript is accepted, I'm happy to send you that table, by private email.
Cheers, Steffen
Hi Márton,
I briefly looked at this in my PhD thesis. I would say it depends on what you mean by "valid" species. If you mean published species which remain valid in the literature, then the number is at least 44. This number accounts for various species that have either been synominised over the years or are no longer valid.
However, fossil phocid taxonomy is notoriously a bit of a mess. There are a lot of species named after scrappy material, and plenty of species that are in dire need of revision. Most species are named after fragmentary and isolated postcranial fossils. But a recent paper (Churchill and Uhen 2019) has found that these elements make poor type specimens, as they are not taxonomically informative.
So many of these species may not remain valid after future revisions. If I was being very conservative, based on my own assessment of type specimens and the published taxonomy, I would say only 15 of these species are valid.
Here is a list of currently named phocid species. I have put a few species into "species complexes", and indicated with asterisk's which species may need revision. I may have missed a few, as there is a lot of species published in very obscure journals. I have excluded all names that have been generally accepted as nomen dubia, and included cases where the status is still being debated.
* = may need to be revised
Stem-phocids
Noriphoca gaudini
Afrophoca libyca*
Devinophoca claytoni
Devinophoca emyri
Monachinae
Pliophoca etrusca
Eomonachus belegaerensis
Homiphoca capensis
Hadrokirus martini
Piscophoca pacifica
Acrophoca longirostirs
Australophoca changorum
Sarcodectes magnus
Properiptychus argentinus*
Monotherium? wymani*
Pontophoca species complex*
- Pontophoca sarmatica*
- Pontophoca jutlandica*
Messiphoca mauritanica*
Virginiaphoca magurai*
Auroraphoca atlantica*
"Waipunga" Elephant seal
Magnotherium johnsii
Phocinae
Leptophoca proxima/lenis*
Prophoca rousseaui
Kawas benegasorum
Nanophoca vitulinoides
Frisiphoca aberratum*
Frisiphoca affine*
Plantopusa semenovi
Praepusa species complex*
- Praepusa boeska*
- Praepusa magyaricus*
- Praepusa pannonica*
- Praepusa tarchankutica*
- Praepusa vindobonensis*
Monachopsis pontica*
Sarmatonectes sintsovi*
Histriophoca alekseevi*
Cryptophoca maeotica*
Batavipusa neerlandica*
Phocanella pumila*
Gryphoca similis*
Platyphoca vulgaris*
Unknown subfamily
Monotherium delognii*
Pachyphoca species complex*
- Pachyphoca ukrainica*
- Pachyphoca chapskii*
Some papers if you want to know more:
- Berta et al. 2018. The Origin and Evolutionary Biology of Pinnipeds: Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses.
- Dewaele et al. 2017. On Prophoca and Leptophoca (Pinnipedia, Phocidae) from the Miocene of the North Atlantic realm: redescription, phylogenetic affinities and paleobiogeographic implications.
- Dewaele et al. 2018. A critical revision of the fossil record, stratigraphy and diversity of the Neogene seal genus Monotherium (Carnivora, Phocidae).
- Dewaele et al. 2018. Diversity of late Neogene Monachinae (Carnivora, Phocidae) from the North Atlantic, with the description of two new species.
- Churchill and Uhen 2019. Taxonomic implications of morphometric analysis of earless seal limb bones.
- Hafed et al. 2020. Current status of pinnipeds phylogeny based on molecular and morphological data.
- Valenzuela-Toro and Pyenson 2019. What do we know about the fossil record of pinnipeds? A historiographical investigation.
- Rule et al. 2020. A new large-bodied Pliocene seal with unusual cutting teeth.
- Rule et al. 2020. First monk seal from the Southern Hemisphere rewrites the evolutionary history of true seals.
Hope this helps,
From James Rule
UPDATE: A new paper came out that has a list of described phocid species (Table 1.1) if you need something to cite. They list 45 species: Chapter The Origin of Phocid Seals and Evolution of Key Behavioral C...