Seal (animal)

Pinnipeds Temporal range: Oligocene–Holocene, 24–0 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Clockwise from top left: New Zealand fur seal (Arctocephalus forsteri), southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina), Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus), walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) and grey seal (Halichoerus grypus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Suborder:	Caniformia
Clade:	Pinnipedimorpha
Clade:	Pinnipedia Illiger, 1811
Subgroups
Family Enaliarctidae† Superfamily Otarioidea Family Odobenidae (walruses) Family Otariidae (fur seals and sea lions) Superfamily Phocoidea Family Phocidae (true seals) Family Desmatophocidae†
Range map

Pinnipeds (/ˈpɪnᵻˌpɛdz/) (from Latin pinna "fin" and pes, pedis "foot"), commonly known as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae (whose only living member is the walrus), Otariidae (the eared seals: sea lions and fur seals), and Phocidae (the earless seals, or true seals). There are 33 extant species of pinnipeds, and more than 50 extinct species have been described from fossils. While seals were historically thought to have descended from two ancestral lines, molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic lineage (descended from one ancestral line). Pinnipeds belong to the order Carnivora and their closest living relatives are bears and musteloids (weasels, raccoons, skunks, and red pandas), having diverged about 50 million years ago.