Pinniped

Taxonomic group of semi-aquatic mammals

Pinnipeds (pronounced), commonly known as seals, are widely distributed and diverse carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammals, belonging to the clade Pinnipedia. 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), with 34 extant species and more than 50 extinct species described from fossils. While seals were historically thought to have descended from two ancestral lines, molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic group (descended from one ancestor).

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