Eared seal

An eared seal, otariid, or otary, is any member of the marine mammal family Otariidae, one of three groupings of pinnipeds. They comprise 15 extant species in seven genera (another species became extinct in the 1950s) and are commonly known either as sea lions or fur seals, distinct from true seals (phocids) and the walrus (odobenids). Otariids are adapted to a semiaquatic lifestyle, feeding and migrating in the water, but breeding and resting on land or ice. They reside in subpolar, temperate, and equatorial waters throughout the Pacific and Southern Oceans, the southern Indian, and Atlantic Oceans. They are conspicuously absent in the north Atlantic.

The words "otariid" and "otary" come from the Ancient Greek ὠτάριον (ōtárion), meaning "little ear", referring to the small but visible external ear flaps (pinnae), which distinguishes them from the phocids.

Evolution and taxonomy

Morphological and molecular evidence supports a monophyletic origin of pinnipeds, sharing a common ancestor with Musteloidea, though an earlier hypothesis suggested that Otаriidae are descended from a common ancestor most closely related to modern bears. Debate remains as to whether the phocids diverged from the otariids before or after the walrus.

Otariids arose in the Miocene (15–17 million years ago) in the North Pacific, diversifying rapidly into the Southern Hemisphere, where most species now live. The earliest known fossil otariid is Eotaria crypta from southern California, while the genus Callorhinus (northern fur seal) has the oldest fossil record of any living otariid, extending to the middle Pliocene.