Erignathus

Uncredited · Public Domain · via Wikidata/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
- bearded sealPBDB
- Sits inside
- PhocinaePBDB
- Diet
- piscivore, carnivorePBDB, for Phocidae
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB, for Pinnipedia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Pinnipedia
Time the record covers
At least 117 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
91 occurrences of Erignathus 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
91 occurrences- Pleistocene26%
- Holocene74%
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
2 formations
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The named rock units Erignathus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 87 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
267 taxa- Odobenus rosmarus45 sites
- Ursus maritimus45 sites
- Rangifer tarandus33 sites
- Phoca hispida27 sites
- Vulpes lagopus23 sites
- Canis19 sites
- Ovibos moschatus19 sites
- Pusa hispida19 sites
- Balaena mysticetus17 sites
- Phoca17 sites
- Delphinapterus leucas16 sites
- Pagophilus groenlandica15 sites
- Branta12 sites
- Canis familiaris12 sites
- Lepus arcticus12 sites
- Cetacea11 sites
- Larus11 sites
- Monodon monoceros10 sites
- Phocadae9 sites
- Somateria mollissima9 sites
- Vulpes9 sites
- Aves8 sites
- Cepphus grylle8 sites
- Larus hyperboreus8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 89 sites for Erignathus, 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
46 references- Polar bear fossil and archaeological records from the Pleistocene and Holocene in relation to sea ice extent and open water polynyas18
- The evolution of Arctic marine mammals13
- Alaska marine mammal stock assessments5
- Prehistoric use of ringed seals: a zooarchaeological study from Arctic Canada4
- The Paleoeskimo Occupations at Port Refuge, High Arctic Canada4
- The Walakpa Site, Alaska: its place in the Birnirk and Thule cultures3
- Archaeology of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska3
- The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe2
- Sea mammal hunters of Chukotka, Bering Strait: recent archaeological results and problems2
- Sea ice expansion in the Bering Sea during the Neoglacial: evidence from archaeozoology1
- Erignathus barbatus (Bearded Seal) vagrant in Massachusetts1
- A Weischelian marine mammal assemblage from the southern North Sea1
Each of the 91 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. 34 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 Erignathus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- 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
- Erignathus barbatus · ummz:mammals:100776
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- SchmalhausenEvolMorph
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPhocinae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gill 1866)