Eared seal
| Eared seals Temporal range: Miocene-Holocene,17.1–0 Ma |
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| An Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Caniformia |
| Clade: | Pinnipedia |
| Superfamily: | Otarioidea |
| Family: |
Otariidae Gray, 1825 |
| Type species | |
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Otaria flavescens (Shaw, 1800) |
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| Genera | |
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Callorhinus
†Eotaria
Eumetopias
Neophoca
Otaria
Phocarctos
†Pithanotaria
†Proterozetes
†Thalassoleon
Zalophus
An eared seal or otariid or otary is any member of the marine mammal family Otariidae, one of three groupings of pinnipeds. They comprise 15 extant species in seven genera (another species became extinct in the 1950s) and are commonly known either as sea lions or fur seals, distinct from true seals (phocids) and the walrus (odobenids). Otariids are adapted to a semiaquatic lifestyle, feeding and migrating in the water, but breeding and resting on land or ice. They reside in subpolar, temperate, and equatorial waters throughout the Pacific and Southern Oceans and the southern Indian and Atlantic Oceans. They are conspicuously absent in the north Atlantic.
The words 'otariid' and 'otary' come from the Greek otarion meaning "little ear", referring to the small but visible external ear flaps (pinnae), which distinguishes them from the phocids.
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Wikipedia