Pinnipeds—fur seals and sea lions, walruses and seals—are one of three major clades of modern marine mammals, having a fossil record going back at least to the late Oligocene. of Geology & Environmental Geosciences, College of Charleston In October 2012 I was visiting the Cooper Center in Orange County – a series of warehouses full of fossils collected by mitigation paleontologists from local construction sites since the 1970s. One of my very first projects involved the study of some particularly rare specimens of the extant fur seal Walruses are a formerly diverse group of pinnipeds, and in the past were no more normal than the single surviving species. Already numerous master’s theses have been written on small parts of this collection, and perhaps ten or more dissertation’s worth of research sits in the warehouses. Pinniped Evolution Pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses) are a group of marine carnivores related to dogs, bears, and weasels. In this case, the late Australian pinnipedologist Judith King studied a fossil skull which had been discovered early in the 20th century from the North Island of NZ but never published on. In April 2009, a team of evolution scientists reported the discovery of a missing link—a fossil pinniped with webbed feet, not flippers, and dubbed this animal Puijila darwini (in honor of Charles Darwin).1, 3, 4, 5 According to these scientists, this new fossil solves a conundrum for the theory of evolution that has existed for over 150 years. Pinnipeds: The Evolution of Seals October (4) September (5) August (4) July (5) June (4) May (4) April (5) March (4) February (4) January (4) 2016 (49) December (3) November (4) By continuing you agree to the Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. or its licensors or contributors. New discoveries of fossil pinnipeds …

The fur seals and sea lions (eared seals), the Otariidae, are diagnosed by frontals that extend anteriorly between the nasals, large and shelf-like supraorbital process of the frontal, secondary spine dividing the supraspinous fossa of the scapula, uniformly spaced pelage units, and by the presence of a trachea with an anterior bifurcation of the bronchi. A particualrly early sea lion-like walrus, A followup study I co-authored with Dr. Carolina Loch (U. Otago), Dr. Morgan Churchill (NYIT), and the late Dr. Jules Kieser (U. Otago) examined the enamel ultrastructure of an isolated premolar of Some of the best fossil discoveries are made in museum collections. Extinct walruses included bizarre double-tusked walruses that chewed clams, “toothless” walruses that completely lacked teeth aside from the tusks, and relatively long-snouted giant walruses. E Brain Size Evolution in Pinnipedia Pinnipeds diverged from terrestrial carnivores during the early Miocene. There has long been a debate about the relationship of pinnipeds to one another and to other mammals. In 1983 she named it Dept. Evolution of Pinnipeds By: Julia DeNucci Conclusion We know that pinnipeds once evolved from similar and related organisms millions of years ago due to the evidence of embryology, fossil records, anatomy and physiology, and chromosomal analysis Darwin's Theories of Evolution ScienceDirect ® is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V.Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.ScienceDirect ® is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V. This is a relatively more recent date than cetaceans and sirenians diverged from their land ancestors. Pinniped monophyly is consistently supported; the group shares a common ancestry with arctoid carnivorans, either ursids or musteloids.

The biogeographic pattern for phocine seals is no less complicated given the different phylogenetic hypotheses proposed. Abstract The oldest definitive pinniped fossils date from approximately 30.6–23 million years ago (Ma) in the North Pacific. This program has been wildly successful and has uncovered literal mountains of fossils. The walruses or Odobenidae are diagnosed as a monophyletic group by the presence of a broad, thick pterygoid strut, fourth upper premolar with a strong posterolingually placed protocone shelf, lower first molar with the talonid heel absent, and a calcaneum with a prominent medial tuberosity. The purported first appearance of phocids in the North Atlantic suggests that the common ancestor of phocids had migrated to the North Atlantic, either northward through the Arctic Basin or southward through the Central American Seaway. Pinnipeds belong to the order Carnivora and their closest living relatives are believed to be either the bears or the superfamily of musteloids (weasels, raccoons, skunks, and red pandas), having diverged about 50 million years ago. 2). These include the three extant lineages: Otariidae, Phocidae, and Odobenidae and two extinct groups, the Desmatophocidae and a basal lineage Enaliarctos (Fig. The name Pinnipedia was first proposed for fin-footed carnivores more than a century ago.