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Gomphotaria
''Gomphotaria'' is a genus of very large shellfish-eating dusignathine walrus found along the coast of what is now California, during the late Miocene. Description It was a huge-sized pinniped with skull length of around , surpassing only by '' Pontolis'', which had a skull of long. ''Gomphotaria'' had comparatively small eyes, increased upper and lower canines and four tusks, with one pair in the lower and upper jaws. According to wear on the tusks, ''G. pugnax'' hammered shellfish open, rather than simply sucking them out of their shells as do modern walruses. In terms of the postcranial skeleton, ''Gomphotaria'' and other dusignathine walruses were built more like sea lions than modern walrus. ''Gomphotaria'' is a prime example of the extreme diversity that walruses once exhibited. References Miocene pinnipeds Prehistoric carnivoran genera Prehistoric pinnipeds of North America Odobenids {{paleo-carnivora-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gomphotaria Pugnax
''Gomphotaria'' is a genus of very large shellfish-eating dusignathine walrus found along the coast of what is now California, during the late Miocene. Description It was a huge-sized pinniped with skull length of around , surpassing only by '' Pontolis'', which had a skull of long. ''Gomphotaria'' had comparatively small eyes, increased upper and lower canines and four tusks, with one pair in the lower and upper jaws. According to wear on the tusks, ''G. pugnax'' hammered shellfish open, rather than simply sucking them out of their shells as do modern walruses. In terms of the postcranial skeleton, ''Gomphotaria'' and other dusignathine walruses were built more like sea lions than modern walrus. ''Gomphotaria'' is a prime example of the extreme diversity that walruses once exhibited. References Miocene pinnipeds Prehistoric carnivoran genera Prehistoric pinnipeds of North America Odobenids {{paleo-carnivora-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontolis
''Pontolis'' is an extinct genus of large walrus. It contained three species, ''P. magnus, P. barroni,'' and ''P. kohnoi''. Like all pinnipeds, ''Pontolis'' was a heavily built amphibious carnivore. ''Pontolis'' lived along the Pacific coast of North America along what is now the western coasts of California and Oregon between 11.608 and 5.332 million years ago, during the Miocene and Pliocene. Description The skull of ''Pontolis'' is long, surpassing skulls of any other prehistoric pinnipeds and twice as big as the skulls of modern male walruses. This giant species was much larger than modern walrus, though like many other extinct walrus species, its upper canines did not develop into long tusks like those of the modern walrus. ''Pontolis'' reached more than in body length, rivaling the extant southern elephant seal as the largest pinniped and member of the order Carnivora Carnivora is a Clade, monophyletic order of Placentalia, placental mammals consisting of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern marine invertebrates than the Pliocene has. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene. As Earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, the climate slowly cooled towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event but consist rather of regionally defined boundaries between the warmer Oligocene and the cooler Pliocene Epoch. During the Early Miocene, the Arabian Peninsula collided with Eurasia, severing the connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and allowing a faunal interchange to occur between Eurasia and Africa, including the dispersal of proboscideans into Eurasia. During the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walrus
The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large pinniped, flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the family (biology), family Odobenidae and genus ''Odobenus''. This species is subdivided into two subspecies: the Atlantic walrus (''O. r. rosmarus''), which lives in the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific walrus (''O. r. divergens''), which lives in the Pacific Ocean. Adult walrus are characterised by prominent tusks and whiskers, and their considerable bulk: adult males in the Pacific can weigh more than and, among pinnipeds, are exceeded in size only by the two species of elephant seals. Walruses live mostly in shallow waters above the continental shelves, spending significant amounts of their lives on the sea ice looking for benthic zone, benthic bivalvia, bivalve mollusks to eat. Walruses are relatively long-lived, social animals, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, most populous U.S. state and the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated Administrative division, subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous Statistical area (United States), urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7million residents and the latter having over 9.6million. Sacramento, California, Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the List of largest California cities by population, most populous city in the state and the List of United States cities by population, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miocene Pinnipeds
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern marine invertebrates than the Pliocene has. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene. As Earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, the climate slowly cooled towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event but consist rather of regionally defined boundaries between the warmer Oligocene and the cooler Pliocene Epoch. During the Early Miocene, the Arabian Peninsula collided with Eurasia, severing the connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and allowing a faunal interchange to occur between Eurasia and Africa, including the dispersal of proboscideans into Eurasia. During the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistoric Carnivoran Genera
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistoric Pinnipeds Of North America
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
