What are the 3 families of pinnipeds?
Pinnipeds are separated into three groups: earless seals, eared seals and walruses. Sometimes referred to as earless seals or true seals, marine mammals in the phocid family can be easily identified by looking at their ears and flippers.
Which is the largest species of pinnipedia?
southern elephant seal
Pinnipeds range in size from the 1 m (3 ft 3 in) and 45 kg (99 lb) Baikal seal to the 5 m (16 ft) and 3,200 kg (7,100 lb) southern elephant seal. Overall, they tend to be larger than other carnivorans; the southern elephant seal is the largest carnivoran.
What is the largest pinniped?
Walrus are the largest pinniped. Seals, sea lions, and walruses belong to a group of marine mammals called pinnipeds, referring to their flippered feet. Seals (true seals or earless seals) have no external ear flaps.
What is the smallest pinniped?
The smallest pinniped, Pusa sibirica (the Baikal seal), which weighs about 45 kilograms (kg) when full grown, grows to about 1 meter (m) long; the largest, Mirounga leonina (the male Southern elephant seal), grows to about 5 m long and weighs up to 3200 kg.
What did seals evolve from?
Seals evolved from carnivorous ancestors that walked on land with sturdy legs; only later did these evolve into the flippers that the family is known for. Now, a beautifully new fossil called Puijila illustrates just what such early steps in seal evolution looked like.
What did pinnipeds evolved from?
Pinnipeds evolved from the ancestors of the musteloids which include everything from the red panda to skunks, badgers weasels, and raccoons. One potential ancestor was Puijila, an otter-like creature with a long tail and webbed feet that likely lived by freshwater lakes about 24 million years ago.
What did pinnipeds evolve?
How many pinnipeds are there?
33 species
The pinnipeds are a group of 33 species of aquatic fin-footed mammals composing three families: the true seals (family Phocidae), the fur seals and sea lions (family Otariidae), and the walrus (family Odobenidae). Pinnipeds live only in rich marine environments and a few inland or tropical freshwater systems.
Who are seals ancestors?
The earliest ancestors of seals and sea lions were mammals that transitioned from life on land to life at sea. Around 36 million years ago, at the end of the Oligocene, the ocean began to cool, which caused major changes to ocean circulation.
Is the leopard seal a true seal?
As “true” seals, they do not have external ears or pinnae, but possess an internal ear canal that leads to an external opening. Their hearing in air is similar to that of a human, but scientists have noted that leopard seals use their ears in conjunction with their whiskers to track prey under water.
How heavy is a bull elephant seal?
Northern elephant seal bulls reach a length of 4.3 to 4.8 m (14 to 16 ft) and the heaviest weigh about 2,500 kg (5,500 lb). The northern and southern elephant seal can be distinguished by various external features.
Did seals evolve from dogs?
“Dogs and seals are not in the same family, however, and are not closely related. The family that compromises seals, Pinnipedia, split from other caniforms around 50 million years ago.” Upon further inspection, there are some pretty obvious phenotypical distinctions between seals and dogs.
Are pinnipeds related to bears?
And it suggests that in the land-to-sea transition, pinnipeds went through a freshwater phase.” This familiar group evolved from land-dwelling carnivores and their closest living relatives are the bears and the mustelids (otters, weasels, skunks and badgers).
Where did phocids evolve from?
Other early fossil phocids date from the mid-Miocene, 15 million years ago in the north Atlantic. Until recently, many researchers believed that phocids evolved separately from otariids and odobenids; and that they evolved from otter-like animals, such as Potamotherium, which inhabited European freshwater lakes.
Is a penguin a pinniped?
All pinnipeds also have sensitive whiskers that help them detect prey. Diet is strictly carnivorous, but pinnipeds eat a variety of prey ranging in size from krill, which is filtered from the water by the complex cheek teeth, to, in the case of the leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx), penguins and even other pinnipeds.
Can a seal mate with a sea lion?
Unlike whales, seals and sea lions have not developed the ability to mate and give birth in the sea. Sea lions and fur seals bear their young on land.
How does a walrus mate?
Walruses mate both in the water and on land, and may copulate several times to increase the chance of fertilization. Like other mammals, they mate using internal reproduction. Males have penile bones with which they extend their reproductive organs.