Diversity of late Neogene Monachinae (Carnivora, rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org Phocidae) from the North Research Atlantic, with the Cite this article: Dewaele L, Peredo CM, description of two Meyvisch P,Louwye S. 2018 Diversity of late Neogene Monachinae (Carnivora, Phocidae) from the North Atlantic, with the description new species of two new species. R. Soc. open sci. 5:172437. 1,2 3,4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172437 Leonard Dewaele , Carlos Mauricio Peredo ,Pjotr Meyvisch1 and Stephen Louwye1 1Department of Geology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Received: 4 January 2018 2Directorate ‘Earth and History of Life’, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Accepted: 2 February 2018 Brussels, Belgium 3Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA 4Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Subject Category: Washington, DC, USA Earth science LD, 0000-0003-1188-2515 Subject Areas: evolution/palaeontology While the diversity of ‘southern seals’, or Monachinae, in the North Atlantic realm is currently limited to the Mediterranean Keywords: monk seal, Monachus monachus, their diversity was much higher during the late Miocene and Pliocene. Although the Neogene, biodiversity, North Atlantic, fossil record of Monachinae from the North Atlantic is mainly Phocidae, Monachinae composed of isolated specimens, many taxa have been erected on the basis of fragmentary and incomparable specimens. The humerus is commonly considered the most diagnostic Author for correspondence: postcranial bone. The research presented in this study limits the selection of type specimens for different fossil Monachinae to Leonard Dewaele humeri and questions fossil taxa that have other types of bones e-mail:
[email protected] as type specimens, such as for Terranectes parvus.