What do we know about the fossil record of pinnipeds? A historiographical investigation.

ABSTRACT: The fossil record of pinnipeds (seals, fur seals and walruses) is globally distributed, spanning from the late Oligocene to the Holocene. This record shows a complex evolutionary history that could not otherwise be inferred from their extant relatives, including multiple radiations and iterative ecomorphological specializations among different lineages, many of which are extinct. The fossil record of pinnipeds is not uniformly represented in space and time, however, leaving some gaps in our knowledge. We performed a historiographical investigation of the published fossil record of pinnipeds based on the information available in the Paleobiology Database, with the aim to broadly characterize and evaluate it from a taxonomic, geographical and temporal perspective. We identified major trends,

SUBMITTER: Valenzuela-Toro A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6894555 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature