Histriophoca Gill 1873

Histriophoca Gill 1873, Am. Nat., 7: 179.

Type Species: Phoca fasciata Zimmermann 1783

Synonyms: Callocephalus Heuglin 1874 .

Species and subspecies: 1 species:

Species Histriophoca fasciata (Zimmermann 1783)

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 revealed 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). Burns and Fay (1970) and McDermid and Bonner (1975) argued that these differences should be recognized only at the subgeneric level.