Phoca

PhocaLinnaeus, 1758

Accepted name, Mammal Species of the World 2005

"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, 1982b; 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."

• Wilson, D and Reeder, D. (eds.) 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. 3rd ed. -- 2142 pp. Johns Hopkins University Press.