Phoca vitulina Linnaeus 1758

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Carnivora, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 532-628 : 599

Phoca vitulina Linnaeus 1758

Phoca vitulina Linnaeus 1758 , Syst. Nat., 10th ed., Vol. 1: 38 .

Type Locality: "in mari Europæo" restricted by Thomas (1911 a) to "Mari Bothnico et Baltico", however, presently it does not occur in the Gulf of Bothnia (Bobrinski et al., 1944) .

Vernacular Names: Harbor Seal.

Subspecies: :

Subspecies Phoca vitulina subsp. vitulina Linnaeus 1758

Subspecies Phoca vitulina subsp. concolor De Kay 1842

Subspecies Phoca vitulina subsp. mellonae Doutt 1942

Subspecies Phoca vitulina subsp. richardii Gray 1864

Subspecies Phoca vitulina subsp. stejnegeri J. A. Allen 1902

Distribution: Coastal regions of Canada, China (south to Kiangsu), Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan (Hokkaido), Mexico (Baja California, Isla Guadalupe-vagrant), Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia (Kurile Isls and Kamchatka), Sweden, USA (Atlantic coast: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, vagrants: New York, Florida, Vermont. Pacific Coast: Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California).

Conservation: IUCN – Data Deficient as P. v. mellonae , otherwise Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: The position of stegjnegeri remains uncertain; Scheffer (1958) placed it in largha ; King (1983) placed it in vitulina ; and Shaughnessy and Fay (1977) suggested incertae sedis. Reviewed by Shaughnessy and Fay (1977), Burns et al. (1984), and Smith et al. (1994). Synonyms allocated according to Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951) and Rice (1998).