Editing Earless seal (section)

===Evolution===
[[File:Cranio Pliophoca etrusca, Orciano.JPG|thumb|Fossil ''[[Pliophoca]]'' skull]] 

The earliest known fossil earless seal is ''[[Noriphoca]] gaudini'' from the late [[Oligocene]] or earliest [[Miocene]] ([[Aquitanian (stage)|Aquitanian]]) of [[Italy]].<ref name=Noriphoca /> Other early fossil phocids date from the mid-Miocene, 15 million years ago in the north Atlantic.<ref name=Noriphoca /><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Dewaele|first1=Leonard|last2=Lambert|first2=Olivier|last3=Louwye|first3=Stephen|date=2017-02-21|title=On ''Prophoca'' and ''Leptophoca'' (Pinnipedia, Phocidae) from the Miocene of the North Atlantic realm: redescription, phylogenetic affinities and paleobiogeographic implications|journal=PeerJ|language=en|volume=5|pages=e3024|doi=10.7717/peerj.3024|pmid=28243538|doi-access=free|pmc=5322758}}</ref> Until recently, many researchers believed that phocids evolved separately from [[otariids]] and [[Walrus|odobenids]]; and that they evolved from [[otter]]-like animals, such as ''[[Potamotherium]]'', which inhabited European freshwater lakes. Recent evidence strongly suggests a monophyletic origin for all pinnipeds from a single ancestor, possibly ''[[Enaliarctos]]'', most closely related to the [[Mustelidae|mustelids]] and [[bear]]s.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Paterson|first1=Ryan S.|last2=Rybczynski|first2=Natalia|last3=Kohno|first3=Naoki|last4=Maddin|first4=Hillary C.|date=2020|title=A Total Evidence Phylogenetic Analysis of Pinniped Phylogeny and the Possibility of Parallel Evolution Within a Monophyletic Framework|journal=Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution|language=en|volume=7|doi=10.3389/fevo.2019.00457|doi-access=free}}</ref>

[[Monk seal]]s and [[elephant seal]]s were previously believed to have first entered the Pacific through the open straits between North and South America,<ref name="Fulton-2010" /> with the Antarctic true seals either using the same route or travelled down the west coast of Africa.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Savage, RJG |author2= Long, MR |name-list-style=amp|year=1986 |title= Mammal Evolution: an illustrated guide|url=https://archive.org/details/mammalevolutioni0000sava |url-access=registration |publisher= Facts on File|location=New York|pages= [https://archive.org/details/mammalevolutioni0000sava/page/94 94–95]|isbn= 978-0-8160-1194-0}}</ref> It is now thought that the [[monk seal]]s, [[elephant seal]]s, and [[Lobodontini|Antarctic seals]] all evolved in the southern hemisphere, and likely dispersed to their current distributions from more southern latitudes.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Rule|first1=James P.|last2=Adams|first2=Justin W.|last3=Marx|first3=Felix G.|last4=Evans|first4=Alistair R.|last5=Tennyson|first5=Alan J. D.|last6=Scofield|first6=R. Paul|last7=Fitzgerald|first7=Erich M. G.|date=2020-11-11|title=First monk seal from the Southern Hemisphere rewrites the evolutionary history of true seals|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences|volume=287|issue=1938|pages=20202318|doi=10.1098/rspb.2020.2318|pmid=33171079|pmc=7735288|doi-access=free}}</ref>