Otarioidea (Redirected from Panotariidae)

Otarioidea
Temporal range: OligoceneHolocene, 24–0 Ma
A rookery of walruses (Odobenus rosmarus)
A male and female South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens)
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Clade: Pinnipedia
Superfamily: Otarioidea
J. E. Gray, 1821
Subclades

Otarioidea is a superfamily of pinnipeds that includes the families Odobenidae, Otariidae and their stem-relatives. In the past when the pinnipeds were considered to be a diphyletic group of marine mammals, a few points of cranial and dental morphology suggested that the otarioids originated from a line of bears. One extinct family, Enaliarctidae, was postulated to be otarioids that were a transitional clade between Hemicyoninae (an extinct subfamily of dog-like bears) and Otariidae. Recent comprehensive studies have, however, since the 1990s found pinnipeds to be a monophyletic clade of aquatic arctoids. There are a few authorities that place desmatophocids and odobenids as sister taxa to Phocidae in the clade Phocomorpha based on a few minor physiological features.


This page was last updated at 2024-02-04 14:58 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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