432 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



KERGUELEN FUR SEAL 

 ARCTOCEPHALUS GAZELLA (Peters) 



Arctophoca gazetta Peters, Monatsb. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1875, p. 396 (Kergue- 



len Island, southern Indian Ocean). 

 SYNONYM: Arctophoca elegans Peters, Monatsb. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1876, p. 



316 (St. Paul and Amsterdam Islands, Indian Ocean). 

 FIGS.: Turner, 1888, pi. 6, figs. 4, 6 (skull). 



The fur seal of Kerguelen in the southern Indian Ocean was 

 described by Peters on the basis of a specimen brought back 

 by the exploring ship Gazelle in 1874. The back, sides of head, 

 neck, and crown are grayish brown, this color extending for- 

 ward in a triangle between the eyes and on the sides of the 

 neck to in front of the ears. Below, the fore neck and upper 

 chest are pale yellow, becoming rusty brown posteriorly. Lips 

 rusty red and vibrissae white. The underfur is rusty red. The 

 specially distinctive characters lie in the skull, which has very 

 small auditory bullae. Turner (1888) speaks of the skeleton 

 as slenderer than in the South American species, with nasals 

 on the same plane as the top of the skull, and the cheek teeth 

 without secondary cusps but with a weak cingulum. The sixth 

 postcanine tooth is much smaller than the others. The adult 

 male measured in total length, 1,770 mm.; ear, 40; hind foot, 

 305. The female showed a total length of 830 mm.; tail, 35; 

 ear, 30. Greatest length of skull, 212 mm.; zygomatic width, 

 131; length of palate, 92. 



Kerguelen or Desolation Island, lying in latitude 49 S., in 

 the southern Indian Ocean, has long been known as a resort 

 especially of the elephant seal, but it maintained also small 

 numbers of fur seals that apparently differed slightly in 

 cranial characters from other isolated groups in the southern 

 hemisphere. Peters emphasizes particularly the small bullae 

 and lack of accessory cusps on the postcanine teeth. The seal 

 found on the St. Paul and Amsterdam Islands, not very far to 

 the north of Kerguelen, Peters later distinguished as Arcto- 

 phoca elegans, a name to which Trouessart (1904-5) gave sub- 

 specific status, but Dr. J. A. Allen (1905, p. 122) believed that 

 the supposed differences were insufficiently defined to recognize 

 more than the one form among these, and probably on the 

 Crozet Islands as well as on Kerguelen, which seems a reason- 

 able conclusion, for the colonies are not so far apart that they 

 might be expected to develop peculiarities through isolation. 



