Neomonachus
| Neomonachus | ||||||||||||
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Hawaiian monk seal ( Neomonachus schauinslandi ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Neomonachus | ||||||||||||
| Slater & Helgen , 2014 |
Neomonachus is a genus of dog seals (Phocidae). The following two types are known:
- Hawaiian monk seal , Neomonachus schauinslandi (Matschie 1905), type species
- Caribbean monk seal , Neomonachus tropicalis (Gray 1850), extinct
Both were originally placed in the genus Monachus together with the Mediterranean monk seal ( Monachus monachus ) .
features
The two species of the genus Neomonachus are smaller than the Mediterranean monk seal, they also lack the white belly spot. They have a narrower, more delicate skull with little developed skull crests. The muzzle is low and long. Between the canine and the first upper premolar there is a noticeable diastema , which Monachus lacks. Compared to Monachus , the nostrils in Neomonachus are relatively narrow and are relatively far back. The zygomatic arches are flattened above and below ( dorso - ventral ).
Systematics
The Caribbean and Hawaiian monk seals form a New World clade that separated from Monachus about 6.3 million years ago . The two species subsequently separated with the formation of the Isthmus of Panama in the late Pliocene . This means that the evolutionary distance between the two monk seal genera is just as great or greater than between other sister genera of the dog seals . The generic name Neomonachus is made up of Monachus and the Greek neo (from ancient Greek νέος néos 'new') and indicates the new genus and the habitat in the western hemisphere ( New World ). The genus was described in 2014 and recognized by the Society for Marine Mammalogy in the same year. The new assignment was also taken over by the IUCN , which also lists the two New World monk seals under the generic name Neomonachus .
literature
- Dirk-Martin Scheel, Graham Slater, Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, Charles Potter, David Rotstein, Kyriakos Tsangaras, Alex Greenwood, Kristofer M. Helgen: Biogeography and taxonomy of extinct and endangered monk seals illuminated by ancient DNA and skull morphology. ZooKeys 409 (2014), pages 1–33, doi: 10.3897 / zookeys.409.6244
Individual evidence
- ^ Committee on Taxonomy. 2014. List of Marine Mammal Species & Subspecies ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Society for Marine Mammalogy, www.marinemammalscience.org, accessed April 16, 2015.
- ^ Neomonachus in the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species . Retrieved April 23, 2015.
