Pinniped Pinniped Pinnipeds, commonly known as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae (whose only living member is the walrus), Otariidae (the eared seals: sea lions and fur seals), and Phocidae (the earless seals, or true seals). There are 33 extant species of pinnipeds, and more than 50 extinct species have been described from fossils. While seals were historically thought to have descended from two ancestral lines, molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic lineage (descended from one ancestral line). Pinnipeds belong to the order Carnivora and their
Mammal scheme used, are the [[Primate]]s including the [[ape]]s, [[monkey]]s and [[lemur]]s; the [[Cetartiodactyla]] including [[whale]]s and [[even-toed ungulates]]; and the [[Carnivora]] which includes [[cat]]s, [[dog]]s, [[weasel]]s, [[bear]]s, [[Pinniped|seals]] and allies. According to "[[Mammal Species of the World]]", 5,416 species were identified in 2006. These were grouped into 1,229 [[genus|genera]], 153 [[family (biology)|families]] and 29 orders. In 2008, the [[International Union for Conservation of Nature]] (IUCN) completed a five-year Global Mammal Assessment for its [[IUCN Red List]], which counted 5,488 species. According to a research published in the "[[Journal of Mammalogy]]" in 2018, the number of recognized mammal species is 6,495