Caribbean monk seal

Caribbean monk seal
Specimen in the New York Aquarium, c. 1910
Conservation status
Extinct (1952)  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Presumed Extinct (1952)  (NatureServe)[2]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Clade:	Pinnipedia
Family:	Phocidae
Genus:	Neomonachus
Species:	†N. tropicalis
Binomial name
†Neomonachus tropicalis (Gray, 1850)
Synonyms
Monachus tropicalis (Gray, 1850)[1] Phoca tropicalis Gray, 1850[1]

The Caribbean monk seal (Neomonachus tropicalis), also known as the West Indian seal or sea wolf, is an extinct species of seal native to the Caribbean. The main natural predators of Caribbean monk seals were large sharks, such as great whites and tiger sharks, and possibly transient orcas (though killer whales are not often sighted in the Caribbean); however, humans would become their most lethal enemy.^[3] Overhunting of the monk seals for oil and meat, as well as overfishing of their natural prey, are the likely reasons for the seals' extinction.^[3]

The last confirmed sighting of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1952, at Serranilla Bank, in the waters west of Jamaica and off the eastern coast of Nicaragua.^[4] In 2008, the species was officially declared extinct by the United States, after an exhaustive five-year search. This analysis was conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).^[5] The Caribbean monk seal is closely related to the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal, a species which is restricted to the central Pacific Ocean surrounding the Hawaiian Islands, and the Mediterranean monk seal, another endangered species, predominantly found in the waters off of Greece.^[6][7]