Phocarctos hookeri

The New Zealand sea lion, once known as Hooker's sea lion, and as pakake or whakahao (male) and kake (female) in Māori, is a species of sea lion that is endemic to New Zealand and primarily breeds on New Zealand's subantarctic Auckland and Campbell islands, and have in recent years been slowly breeding and recolonising around the coast of New Zealand's South and Stewart islands. The New Zealand sea lion population estimate is less than 10,000 individuals and fewer than 5,000 breeding adults. This number has declined from an estimated population of over 15,000 in the early 2000s, and it is one of the world's rarest sea lion species. It is the only species of the genus Phocarctos.

Phocarctos hookeri

Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia · Public Domain · 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
New Zealand sea lionPBDB
Sits inside
PhocarctosPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Otariidae
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Pinnipedia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pinnipedia

Time the record covers

At least 762 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.8 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 1 of 16 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 15 of 16 occurrences1.8–1.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–997 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences997 ka–920 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences920 ka–843 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences843 ka–767 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences77 ka–0 Mya — about 15 occurrences774 ka11.7 ka2.3 Mya0 Mya

16 occurrences of Phocarctos hookeri 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

16 occurrences

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

1 formation

Opoitian Sandstones — 39.64°S, 177.10°E

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The named rock units Phocarctos hookeri has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

2 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Phocarctos hookeri, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

6 references

Each of the 16 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. 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 content2

Picture of Phocarctos hookeri

Credit
Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Phocarctos hookeri · NHMUK:ZOO:1908.2.20.52

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 itPhocarctos through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gray 1844)