440 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



GUADALUPE FUR SEAL 

 ARCTOCEPHALUS TOWNSENDI Merriam 



Arctocephalus townsendi Merriam, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 11, p. 178, 1897 



(Guadalupe Island, Lower California, Mexico). 

 FIGS.: Allen, J. A., 1905, pis. 18, 19, 20 (skull); Townsend, 1931, figs. 345 (col.), 356 



(photographs of animals and skull). 



This is the only fur seal of the genus Arctocephalus found 

 north of the Equator and it may be supposed to have been 

 derived from ancestral forms of the South Pacific Ocean. The 

 differences as compared with A. philippii are in the skull, 

 which is much narrower, especially the rostral portion, with a 

 narrower and more depressed palate, flatter audital bullae, 

 and somewhat smaller size. The external characters are not 

 known, but probably it closely resembled its more southern 

 relatives. The type skull measured : Greatest length, 256 mm. ; 

 zygomatic width, 151; canine to last molar (inclusive), 88. 



The history of this species has been summarized by J. A. 

 Allen (1905) and by C. H. Townsend (in Jordan and others, 

 1899) who was the first to obtain specimens for study pur- 

 poses. According to the former, large numbers were in earlier 

 days taken at the San Benito, Cerros, Guadalupe, Santa 

 Barbara, and other islands off southern and Lower Cali- 

 fornia as well as on the coast of the mainland. It was resi- 

 dent on these coasts the year round. In 1806 and 1807 one 

 vessel took over 8,300 seals at Benito Island, and another in 

 the following year killed 3,000 off Cape San Lucas. Dr. Joseph 

 Grinnell (1933) wrote that up to about 1833 it occurred on the 

 coast of Monterey County and on the Farallon Islands, Cali- 

 fornia, and there were a few still around Santa Barbara Islands 

 up to about 1890. North of the Mexican boundary, however, 

 it was then extinct or nearly so. In 1825, Capt. Benjamin 

 Morrell reported that on Socorro Island, in latitude 18 53' N., 

 about 20 fur seals were seen, on May 20. In the previous 

 March at Guadalupe he had found and captured a number. 

 Cerros Island, he states, was formerly a great place for them, 

 but at that time it had been abandoned as a resort. Arriving 

 at the Farallon Islands on May 11, 1825, he wrote that "many 

 years ago this place was the resort of numerous fur-seal, but 

 the Russians have made such havoc among them that there is 

 scarcely a breed left." Scammon (1874) refers to their former 



