Arctocephalus
The genus Arctocephalus consists of the southern fur seals. Arctocephalus translates to "bear head".
CHUCAO · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- fur sealPBDB
- Sits inside
- AustralotariiaPBDB
- Diet
- piscivorePBDB, for Otariidae
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB, for Pinnipedia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Pinnipedia
Time the record covers
At least 3.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
112 occurrences of Arctocephalus on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
112 occurrences- Pliocene3%
- Pleistocene19%
- Holocene78%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
5 formations
- San Mateo Formation1
- Chui Formation1
- Varswater Formation1
- Caracoles Formation1
- Miramar Formation · Punta San Andrés Group1
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The named rock units Arctocephalus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 107 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
318 taxa- Lupulella mesomelas15 sites
- Hystrix africaeaustralis14 sites
- Taurotragus oryx14 sites
- Procavia capensis13 sites
- Raphicerus13 sites
- Delphinidae12 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius12 sites
- Mellivora capensis12 sites
- Pelea capreolus12 sites
- Bovidae11 sites
- Galerella pulverulenta11 sites
- Homo sapiens11 sites
- Redunca arundinum11 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus10 sites
- Bathyergus suillus10 sites
- Papio ursinus10 sites
- Raphicerus melanotis10 sites
- Syncerus caffer10 sites
- Connochaetes gnou9 sites
- Diceros bicornis9 sites
- Felis lybica9 sites
- Hippotragus leucophaeus9 sites
- Parahyaena brunnea9 sites
- Raphicerus campestris9 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 111 sites for Arctocephalus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
37 references- A trans-Holocene archaeological record of Guadalupe fur seals (Arctocephalus townsendi) on the California coast60
- Review of fossil phocid and otariid seals from the southern and western coasts of South Africa6
- The fur seal of South Georgia6
- The Mammalian Fauna of the Klasies River Mouth Sites, Southern Cape Province, South Africa3
- The late quaternary mammalian fauna of Nelson Bay Cave (Cape Province, South Africa): Its implications for megafaunal extinctions and environmental and cultural change3
- Marine mammal strandings in the New Caledonia region, Southwest Pacific2
- The Late Cenozoic Carnivora of the South-Western Cape Province2
- Revalidation of Tursiops gephyreus Lahille, 1908 (Cetartiodactyla: Delphinidae) from the southwestern Atlantic Ocean1
- A Howiesons Poort tradition of engraving ostrich eggshell containers dated to 60,000 years ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa1
- Fossil Pinnipedia and Cetacea1
- Blombos Cave, Southern Cape, South Africa: Preliminary Report on the 1992–1999 Excavations of the Middle Stone Age Levels1
- Middle and later Stone Age large mammal and tortoise remains from Die Kelders Cave 1, Western Cape Province, South Africa1
Each of the 112 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 25 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Arctocephalus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- CHUCAO
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Arctocephalus pusillus · tmag:mammalogy:A11092
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAustralotariia through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cuvier 1826