456 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



HAWAIIAN MONK SEAL 



MONACHUS SCHAUINSLANDI Matschie 



Monachus schauinslandi Matschie, Sitzb. Ges. Naturforsch. Freunde, Berlin, 1905, 



p. 258 ("Laysan" Island, Hawaiian Islands). 

 FIGS.: Atkinson and Bryan, 1914, p. 1050, fig.; Bryan, 1915, p. 96, pi. 21, fig. 4; p. 294, 



pi. 76. 



The discovery of a species of Monachus in the Hawaiian 

 Islands was one of the interesting results of modern discrimina- 

 tive study, for though the animal had long been known to 

 sealers no specimens had received attention from naturalists 

 until 1905, when Matschie pointed out that a skull from 

 Laysan, in a German museum, belonged to this genus. This 

 discontinuous distribution of Monachus in the Mediterranean, 

 the Caribbean Sea, and Greater Antillean Islands, and finally 

 in the Hawaiian Islands is one the explanation of which 

 forms an interesting speculation. This Pacific colony may be 

 presumed to have been derived from the Caribbean at some 

 time in the Tertiary, when, as seems well established, the 

 latter was in open connection with the Pacific. In late Tertiary 

 times the Panamanian union with South America was again 

 established, cutting off the Caribbean from Pacific waters. 

 That the seals should now be limited to the Hawaiian group 

 in the Pacific, however, must indicate that they are a relict 

 group, which once had a wider distribution, with a preference 

 for tropical seas. 



The Hawaiian monk seal is not very different in appearance 

 from the West Indian seal, but Matschie points out 16 cranial 

 characters in which it differs from the Mediterranean species. 

 It is dark brown above, the sides are paler brown, and the 

 belly is whitish. The skull is. more nearly like that of the 

 West Indian seal; Matschie emphasizes as obvious points that 

 the jugal meets the maxillary above the last molar instead of 

 above the next to the last cheek tooth, and that the bony 

 bridge forming the lower part of the antorbital foramen is 

 narrower. Greatest length of skull, 268 mm.; condylobasal 

 length, 265. 



Until Schauinsland brought back to Germany a specimen of 

 this seal no one seems to have paid much attention to it. In 

 1915, however, Bryan summed up its brief history, pointing 

 out that as early as 1824 the brig Ainoa set out from the Hawai- 

 ian Islands on a sealing voyage, and that at different times 



