PINNIPED

Pinniped

Pinnipeds, often generalized as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of fin-footed, semiaquatic marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae, Otariidae, and Phocidae . There are 33 extant species of pinnipeds, and more than 50 extinct species have been described from fossils. While seals were historically thought to have descended from two ancestral lines, molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic lineage . Pinnipeds belong to the order Carnivora and their closest living relatives are bears and musteloids.

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pinniped

Noun

  1. Any of various large marine mammals belonging to the superfamily (formerly considered a suborder) Pinnipedia comprising walruses, eared seals and earless seals.

Adjective

  1. Pertaining to or similar to such a mammal.




        

        The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: pinniped
        

        and as such is available under the 
        Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
        
        
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