Pinnipedimorpha

Pinnipedimorpha is a stem-clade of arctoid carnivorans that is defined to include the last common ancestor of Phoca and Enaliarctos, and all of their descendants of that ancestral taxon.[1] Scientists still debate on which lineage of arctoid carnivorans are the closest relatives to the pinnipedimorphs, being either more closely related to bears or to musteloids.[2][3][4][5][6]

Pinnipedimorphs Temporal range: Oligocene–Holocene, 24–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Artist reconstruction of Enaliarctos emlongi
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Infraorder:	Arctoidea
Clade:	Pinnipedimorpha Berta et al., 1989
Subtaxa
†Enaliarctidae Mitchell & Tedford, 1973 Pinnipediformes Berta, 1994 †Pinnarctidion Barnes, 1979 †Pacificotaria Barnes, 1992 †Pteronarctos Barnes, 1989 Pinnipedia Illiger, 1811

Below is an overall phylogeny of the taxa covered in the article followed after a composite tree in Berta et al. (2018)[1] and a total-evidence (combined molecular-morphological) dataset in Paterson et al. (2020):[7]

	†Amphicynodontidae       †Semantoridae     Pinnipedimorpha   †Enaliarctidae     Pinnipediformes   †Pinnarctidion         †Pacificotaria     †Pteronarctos     Pinnipedia Phocoidea   Phocidae     Otarioidea   †Desmatophocidae         Odobenidae     Panotariidae   †Eotaria     Otariidae

See also

• List of fossil pinnipeds

References

1. Berta, A.; Churchill, M. & Boessenecker, R.W. (2018). "The Origin and Evolutionary Biology of Pinnipeds: Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 0. doi:10.1146/annurev-earth-082517-010009.
2. Lento, G. M.; Hickson, R. E.; Chambers, G. K.; Penny, D. (1995). "Use of spectral analysis to test hypotheses on the origin of pinnipeds". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 12 (1): 28–52. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040189. PMID 7877495.
3. Hunt, R. M. Jr.; Barnes, L. G. (1994). "Basicranial evidence for ursid affinity of the oldest pinnipeds" (PDF). Proceedings of the San Diego Society of Natural History. 29: 57–67.
4. Higdon, J. W.; Bininda-Emonds, O. R.; Beck, R. M.; Ferguson, S. H. (2007). "Phylogeny and divergence of the pinnipeds (Carnivora: Mammalia) assessed using a multigene dataset". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 7: 216. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-7-216. PMC 2245807. PMID 17996107.
5. Sato, J. J.; Wolsan, M.; Suzuki, H.; Hosoda, T.; Yamaguchi, Y.; Hiyama, K.; Kobayashi, M.; Minami, S. (2006). "Evidence from nuclear DNA sequences sheds light on the phylogenetic relationships of Pinnipedia: Single origin with affinity to Musteloidea". Zoological Science. 23 (2): 125–46. doi:10.2108/zsj.23.125. hdl:2115/13508. PMID 16603806.
6. Flynn, J. J.; Finarelli, J. A.; Zehr, S.; Hsu, J.; Nedbal, M. A. (2005). "Molecular phylogeny of the Carnivora (Mammalia): Assessing the impact of increased sampling on resolving enigmatic relationships". Systematic Biology. 54 (2): 317–37. doi:10.1080/10635150590923326. PMID 16012099.
7. Paterson, R. S.; Rybczynski, N.; Kohno, N.; Maddin, H. C. (2020). "Pinniped taxonomy: review of currently recognized species and subspecies, and evidence used for their description". Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 7 (457). doi:10.3389/fevo.2019.00457.

Further reading

• A. Berta, C. E. Ray, and A. R. Wyss. 1989. Skeleton of the oldest known pinniped, Enaliarctos mealsi. Science 244:60-62