Geography of Phocid Evolution

Ray, Clayton E.

doi:10.2307/2412513

Cited by 80 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The Baikal seal presumably came from the north and not directly from the area west of the old Paratethyan basin, which was located in the present Caspian Sea. Our results support the paleontological and geographical hypotheses presented by Ray (1976) and Repenning et al . (1979).…”

Section: Genetic Relationships Among Pusa Species and Origin Of The Bsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…This strongly supports the immigration course and time suggested by Ray (1976) and Repenning et al . (1979).…”

Section: Differentiation Timesupporting

confidence: 91%

“…The results of these studies present two primary hypotheses on the origins of the Baikal seal. Ray (1976) and Repenning et al . (1979) suggested that about 2.5 to 3 million years ago, when the Arctic Ocean extended below 61 ° north latitude, an ancestor of Pusa gained access to the Arctic Ocean from the Paratethys of southeastern Europe, and then about 300,000 years ago migrated to Lake Baikal via the Yenisey River.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Several reports based on fossil records have been published to date on the origins of the Baikal seal (Kozhov, 1963;Ray, 1976;Repenning et al ., 1979;Davies, 1958;MacLaren, 1960). The results of these studies present two primary hypotheses on the origins of the Baikal seal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The Origin and Genetic Relationships of the Baikal Seal, Phoca sibirica, by Restriction Analysis of Mitochondrial DNA

2003

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Genetic Relationships Among Pusa Species and Origin Of The Bsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…This strongly supports the immigration course and time suggested by Ray (1976) and Repenning et al . (1979).…”

Section: Differentiation Timesupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Origin and Genetic Relationships of the Baikal Seal, Phoca sibirica, by Restriction Analysis of Mitochondrial DNA

2003

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Neither the palaebiogeography nor the suggested (but unproven) Eocene age for the beginning of the evolution of evolution of earless seals (phocids) [3,4,6,7] can be supported by the evidence from this new fossil seal site in Germany. This vertebrate-rich site has been the subject of interdisciplinary studies; it contains mainly shark remains but also a variety of marine mammals [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

The world’s oldest fossil seal record

Diedrich¹

2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A femur fragment with an Early Lutetian (early Middle Eocene) age is the world's oldest fossil record from a seal, and, is described as Praephoca bendullensis nov. gen. nov. spec. This find pushes back the earliest evolution of seals into the Paleocene epoch. The femur has plesiomorphic terrestrial mammal characteristics but has a morphology that is already closer to that of Miocene and present day seals. The Eocene seal femur was found at Fürstenau-Dalum in north-west Germany, in a conglomerate rich in shark teeth that was deposited in a coastal delta environment to the north-west of the central European Rhenish Massif mainland, in the southern pre-North Sea Basin. This discovery has led to a revision of the theory that phocids originated along the coastline of the North American continent. Instead they can now be interpreted to have originated in the tropical Eocene climate of central Europe. Although the fossil records of pinnipeds in Europe during the Eocene, Oligocene and Miocene are extremely sparse, they appear to have inhabited the preNorth Sea basin, within the influence of temperate and arctic upwellings. The distribution of abundant teeth from white and megatooth sharks of two different lineages appears to correlate with that of the seals, which the sharks most probably hunted; providing supporting evidence that the phocids were already adapted as shallow marine coastal inhabitants by this time.

show abstract