Neophoca cinerea

Searched as Arctocephalus australis. The Paleobiology Database treats Neophoca cinerea as the accepted name.

The South American fur seal breeds on the coasts of Peru, Chile, the Falkland Islands, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. South American fur seals are of least concern on the IUCN Red List. The total population is around 300,000-450,000. Populations are affected by hunting and environmental stressors. Arctocephalus australis have a dark grey or brown fur coat and are sexually dimorphic. Males compete for territory and females to mate with, forming a dominance hierarchy. Breeding season is from October to December, whereas multiple pups are bred each season. South American fur seals are nocturnal, carnivorous hunters that primarily eat demersal and pelagic fish. They are social and often hunt in groups. Communication within the species occurs through a variety of vocalizations, such as guttural threats, barks, whimpers, or submissive calls from the males and growls or high-pitched wails to gather pups from females. Four subspecies may be recognized: A. a. australis, A. a. gracilis, A. a. forsteri, and an unnamed species.

Neophoca cinerea

4028mdk09 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
Australian sea lionPBDB
Sits inside
NeophocaPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Otariidae
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 1 of 9 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 8 of 9 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

9 occurrences of Neophoca cinerea 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

9 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

2 formations

Dennington Aeolianite — 38.27°S, 144.65°EMiramar — 38.25°S, 57.78°W

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The named rock units Neophoca cinerea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Neophoca cinerea and its relatives

Holocene

Where Neophoca cinerea and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

1 taxon

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Neophoca cinerea, 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

4 references

Each of the 9 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 content3

Picture of Neophoca cinerea

Credit
4028mdk09
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Arctocephalus australis · NHMUK:ZD:84.912

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itNeophoca through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Quoy and Gaimard 1830)