Pinnipeds, often generalized as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of fin-footed, semiaquatic marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae , Otariidae, and Phocidae. 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).
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