| Otarioidea
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| A rookery of walruses (Odobenus rosmarus) | |
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| A male and female South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens) | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Clade: | Pinnipedia |
| Superfamily: | Otarioidea J. E. Gray, 1821 |
| Subclades | |
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Otarioidea is a superfamily of pinnipeds that includes the families Odobenidae, Otariidae and their stem-relatives.[1][2] In the past when the pinnipeds were considered to be a diphyletic group of marine mammals, a few points of cranial and dental morphology suggested that the otarioids originated from a line of bears.[3] One extinct family, Enaliarctidae, was postulated to be otarioids that were a transitional clade between Hemicyoninae (an extinct subfamily of dog-like bears) and Otariidae.[3] Recent comprehensive studies have, however, since the 1990s found pinnipeds to be a monophyletic clade of aquatic arctoids.[1] There are a few authorities that place desmatophocids and odobenids as sister taxa to Phocidae in the clade Phocomorpha based on a few minor physiological features.[4]
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Genera of pinnipeds and their stem-allies
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| Otarioidea |
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