Otarioidea is a superfamily of
pinniped
Pinnipeds (pronounced ), commonly known as seals, are a widely range (biology), distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammal, marine mammals. They comprise the extant taxon, extant family (biology ...
s that includes the families
Odobenidae
Odobenidae is a family of pinnipeds. The only living species is the walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus''). In the past, however, the group was much more diverse, and includes more than a dozen fossil genera.
Taxonomy
All genera, except ''Odobenus'', ...
,
Otariidae and their stem-relatives.
In the past when the pinnipeds were considered to be a
diphyletic group of
marine mammal
Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their ...
s, 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
Hemicyoninae is an extinct subfamily of Ursidae, often called dog bears (literally "half dog" (Greek: )). They were bear-like carnivorans living in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia during the Oligocene through Miocene epochs 33.9–5.3&nb ...
(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.][McKenna, Malcolm C., and Susan K. Bell (1997). ''Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level.'' New York: Columbia University Press. 631 pp. ]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q20721907
Pinnipeds
Extant Burdigalian first appearances
Taxa named by John Edward Gray