Mirounga angustirostris

The northern elephant seal or northern sea elephant, is one of two species of elephant seal. It is a member of the family Phocidae. Elephant seals derive their name from their great size and from the male's large proboscis. Sexual dimorphism in size is great. Correspondingly, the mating system is highly polygynous; a successful male is able to impregnate up to 50 females in one season.

Mirounga angustirostris

Mike Baird · CC BY 2.0 · 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
northern elephant sealPBDB
Sits inside
MiroungaPBDB
Diet
piscivore, carnivorePBDB, for Phocidae
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Pinnipedia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pinnipedia

Time the record covers

At least 2 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 14 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 210 ka to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 3 of 32 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 29 of 32 occurrences213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences24 ka–0 Mya — about 29 occurrences14 ka – 11.7 ka710 ka0 Mya

32 occurrences of Mirounga angustirostris on record. 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

32 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

Palos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.80°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.83°N, 118.31°W

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The named rock units Mirounga angustirostris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 29 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

55 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Mirounga angustirostris, 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

5 references

Each of the 32 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 content2

Picture of Mirounga angustirostris

Credit
Mike Baird
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

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

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itMirounga through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gill 1866)