OBJECT DOSSIER · SMITHSONIAN OPEN ACCESS

Early seal — Acrophoca longirostris

SAGE Museum Deep Time scientific dossier

Artist / Creator

Ryan Somma

Date / Period

Miocene · Miocene; Smithsonian material comes from the Pisco Formation.

Object Type

complete skull and skeleton

Medium

unknown_needs_review

About This Object

Geologic period: Miocene

Age: Miocene; Smithsonian material comes from the Pisco Formation.

Feeding: Marine carnivore.

Locomotion: Aquatic swimming with movement on land or shore.

Evidence: The skull and skeleton directly preserve pinniped anatomy. Swimming style and behavior are reconstructed from the skeleton.

Why it matters: Acrophoca documents the diversification of seals in the productive marine ecosystems of the southeastern Pacific.

Plain Language Identity: An extinct true seal from the Miocene of Peru.

What You Are Looking At: A fossil skull and skeleton of an extinct phocid seal.

Ecosystem: Miocene coastal marine ecosystem of Peru.

Source Urls: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour/current-exhibits/deep-time-virtual-tour-fossil-list; https://www.si.edu/object/acrophoca-longirostris-de-muizon:nmnhpaleobiology_3445006

Formation: Pisco Formation

Find Location: Peru

Enrichment Method: SAGE curated research pass; title + scientific name + source scene matched; chronology and taxonomy conflicts retained rather than silently corrected; evidence separated from inference

Scientific name: Acrophoca longirostris

Evidence / representation: comparative_taxon_visual

Why It Is In This SAGE Exhibit

comparative_taxon_visual

After the Dinosaurs: Mammals, Ice Ages and the World We Inherited.

Provenance

Smithsonian Deep Time source scene: The Not-So-Distant Past

Visual source institution: Wikimedia Commons

Exhibition History

Included in the SAGE Museum Dinosaurs & Deep Time staging exhibit.

Collection & Credit

Media license: CC BY-SA 2.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0

Subjects & Themes

Acrophoca longirostris Miocene complete skull and skeleton The Not-So-Distant Past After the Dinosaurs

ORIGINAL COLLECTION SOURCE

This object page stays inside SAGE Museum. The Smithsonian link below is provided only as the original scholarly collection record. It opens separately.

VIEW ORIGINAL SMITHSONIAN RECORD ↗