Eared seal

Eared seals Temporal range: Miocene–Holocene,[1] 17.1–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
An Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Clade:	Pinnipedia
Clade:	Panotariidae
Family:	Otariidae Gray, 1825
Type genus
Otaria Péron, 1816
Genera
Arctocephalus Callorhinus †Eotaria Eumetopias Neophoca Otaria Phocarctos †Pithanotaria †Proterozetes †Thalassoleon Zalophus

An eared seal, otariid, or otary is any member of the marine mammal family Otariidae, one of three groupings of pinnipeds. They comprise 15 extant species in seven genera (another species became extinct in the 1950s) and are commonly known either as sea lions or fur seals, distinct from true seals (phocids) and the walrus (odobenids). Otariids are adapted to a semiaquatic lifestyle, feeding and migrating in the water, but breeding and resting on land or ice. They reside in subpolar, temperate, and equatorial waters throughout the Pacific and Southern Oceans, the southern Indian, and Atlantic Oceans. They are conspicuously absent in the north Atlantic.

The words "otariid" and "otary" come from the Greek otarion meaning "little ear",^[2] referring to the small but visible external ear flaps (pinnae), which distinguishes them from the phocids.