Phoca 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 Linnaeus 1758

Phoca Linnaeus 1758 , Syst. Nat., 10th ed., Vol. 1: 37 .

Type Species: Phoca vitulina Linnaeus 1758

Synonyms: Ambysus Rafinesque 1815 ; Arctias Rafinesque 1815 ; Calocephalus F. G. Cuvier 1826 ; Caspiopusa Dybowski 1929 .

Species and subspecies: 2 species with 5 subspecies:

Species Phoca largha Pallas 1811

Species Phoca vitulina Linnaeus 1758

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

Discussion: Burns and Fay (1970), Rice (1977), McDermid and Bonner (1975), Gromov and Baranova (1981), King (1983), and Wyss (1988) considered Phoca , Pusa , Histriophoca , and Pagophilus a monophyletic group. Cladistic analysis based on morphology and mtDNA reveal two clades, Pagophilus + Histriophoca and Phoca + Pusa + Halichoerus ( Carr and Perry, 1998; Mouchaty et al., 1995; Muizon, 1982 b; Perry et al., 1995; Rice, 1998). This was also supported by Bininda-Emonds et al.’s (1999) "complete data" phylogeny. Burns and Fay (1970) and McDermid and Bonner (1975) argued that these differences should be recognized only at the subgeneric level.