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- Today’s seals and sea lions are not direct descendants of Puijila, but the otter-like mammal represents what pinniped ancestors were like at one point in the distant past. Paleontologists know this because rock layers of about the same age—about 24 million years old—as Puijila contain the remains of the early pinniped Enaliarctos.
www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-did-seals-and-sea-lions-never-commit-to-a-life-fully-at-sea-180983926/Why Did Seals and Sea Lions Never Commit to a Life Fully at ...
The earliest ancestors of seals and sea lions were mammals that transitioned from life on land to life at sea. Around 36 million years ago, at the end of the Oligocene, the ocean began to cool, which caused major changes to ocean circulation.
May 24, 2024 · There are two fossil candidates for what could be considered the first seal ancestors, called Potamotherium and Puijila. Both were likely living similar lifestyles as otter-like animals, but the issue is that they come from completely different parts of the world.
The oldest definitive pinniped fossils date from approximately 30.6–23 million years ago (Ma) in the North Pacific. Pinniped monophyly is consistently supported; the group shares a common ancestry with arctoid carnivorans, either ursids or musteloids. Crown pinnipeds comprise the Otariidae (fur seals and sea lions), Odobenidae (walruses), and ...
Apr 21, 2009 · Researchers have found a fossilized ancestor of modern seals and sea lions that they say represents an evolutionary step in the organisms' transition from land-dwelling mammals to the aquatic creatures they are today.
Apr 22, 2009 · Puijila is a massive boon for biologists trying to understand the evolution of pinnipeds, the group that includes seals, sea lions and walruses. It’s not itself a direct ancestor, having ...
Nov 15, 2019 · Fossils of the arctoid ancestors of Pinnipedia (fur seals, sea lions, walruses, seals) can be traced to the Eocene (~45 Mya), although fossil pinnipedimorphs only extend to the late Oligocene (27–25 Mya).
