Pusa hispida

The ringed seal is a small earless seal species found in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Its common name is derived from a distinctive patterning of dark spots surrounded by light gray rings.

Pusa hispida

NOAA Seal Survey · 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
ringed sealPBDB
Sits inside
PusaPBDB
Diet
piscivore, carnivorePBDB, for Phocidae
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Pinnipedia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pinnipedia

Time the record covers

At most 129 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 6 of 52 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 46 of 52 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence21 ka–0 Mya — about 46 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

52 occurrences of Pusa hispida on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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

52 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

Gubik — 70.50°N, 153.50°W

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The named rock units Pusa hispida has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 51 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pusa hispida and its relatives

Holocene

Where Pusa hispida and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

177 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 52 sites for Pusa hispida, 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

25 references

Each of the 52 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. 13 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 Pusa hispida

Credit
NOAA Seal Survey
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Pusa hispida · ummz:mammals:99782

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 itPusa through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Schreber 1775)