Homiphoca

Homiphoca is an extinct genus of earless seals from the Pliocene of South Africa.

Homiphoca Temporal range: Pliocene PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Parvorder:	Pinnipedia
Family:	Phocidae
Subfamily:	Monachinae
Genus:	†Homiphoca Muizon and Hendey, 1980
Species
H. capensis (Hendey and Repenning, 1972) (type species) H. murfreesi Hafed et al., 2022

Taxonomy

The type species of Homiphoca, H. capensis, was originally described as a species of the dubious delphinoid Prionodelphis, P. capensis.^[1] Later analysis in 1980 showed that P. capensis was a pinniped and not a cetacean, necessitating erection of the new genus Homiphoca.^[2] Cladistic analysis places Homiphoca as a member of Lobodontini, which includes the crabeater, Weddell, Ross, and leopard seals.^[3][4]

Fossils

Homiphoca remains are known with certainty only from Langebaanweg, South Africa. Remains from Pliocene deposits in Florida and the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina, have been referred to the genus, although Berta et al. (2015) questioned this referral based on results of their cladistic analysis of Pliophoca.^[5]