Pelagiarctos

Pelagiarctos Temporal range: Mid Miocene
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Clade:	Pinnipedia
Family:	Odobenidae
Genus:	†Pelagiarctos Barnes, 1988
Type species
†Pelagiarctos thomasi Barnes, 1988

Pelagiarctos was a

.

Anatomy

To date, the only material of Pelagiarctos that has been found includes a handful of partial

remains have yet been found, the size of the dentary suggests an overall length of approx. 2.5–3 meters.

Environment

The remains of Pelagiarctos have so far only been discovered in the Sharktooth Hill Bonebed, located in Kern County, California.

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The sediments that have yielded Pelagiarctos have also yielded numerous other species of ocean-going vertebrates, including sharks (

).

Paleobiology

Because of its large size, adaptations geared toward crunching bones, and rarity in the fossil record, Pelagiarctos is formerly interpreted as being a predator of other large marine vertebrates. If so, it would make Pelagiarctos unique among pinnipeds, as most other species are adapted to much smaller prey such as fish or squid. Pelagiarctos most likely preyed upon the pinniped Allodesmus (which was very common in its environment), but it could also have preyed upon other marine mammals such as Metaxytherium or Paleoparadoxia. But in a 2014 study indicates that it was not an apex predator.

References

• doi:10.5962/p.208197
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