Frisiphoca is an extinct genus of phocid belonging to the subfamily Phocinae. It is known from fossils found in the late Miocene of Belgium.
| Frisiphoca Temporal range:
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Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Clade: | Pinnipedia |
| Family: | Phocidae |
| Subfamily: | Phocinae |
| Genus: | †Frisiphoca Dewaele, Lambert, and Louwye, 2018 |
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Taxonomy
editThere are two species of Frisiphoca, F. aberratum and F. affine. Both were previously assigned to Monotherium,[1] but Dewaele et al. (2018) found those species generically distinct from the Monotherium type species and placed them in their own genus, Frisiphoca.[2]
Fossils
editFossils of Frisiphoca aberratum and F. affine occur in the Tortonian-age Diest Formation of the vicinity of Antwerp, Belgium.[1] Ray (1976) tentatively referred to F. aberratum a humerus from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.[3]
References
edit- ^ a b P. J. Van Beneden. 1876. Les phoques fossiles du bassin d'Anvers. Bulletins de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 41:783-803
- ^ Leonard Dewaele; Olivier Lambert; Stephen Louwye (2018). "A critical revision of the fossil record, stratigraphy and diversity of the Neogene seal genus Monotherium (Carnivora, Phocidae)". Royal Society Open Science. 5 (5): 171669. doi:10.1098/rsos.171669.
- ^ C. E. Ray. 1976. Phoca wymani and other Tertiary seals (Mammalia: Phocidae) described from the eastern seaboard of North America. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 28:1-33.
