Collaborative Research: Phylogenetic and Functional Analyses of Fossil and Living Walruses (Pinnipedia: Odobenidae)

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9419802 Archibald This taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional studies of fossil walruses (Odobenidae sensu Demere) will focus on exceptionally well preserved and systematically informative skeletal material from the Emlong Collection (USNM, Smithsonian Institution). Specific objectives of this study are: (1) to document obobenid diversity from the early Miocene through the Pliocene (17-3 million years ago), (2) to evaluate the systematic relationships of these Neogene odobenids that are especially critical to walrus phylogeny, and (3) to use this phylogenetic framework to investigate adaptation of feeding strategies and locomotor patterns among odobenids and related pinnipeds (seals and sea lions).