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Historically,  Monotherium  had been one of the few genera of extinct Phocidae (true seals) that served as a wastebin taxon. Consequently, it did neither aid in understanding phylogenetic relationships of extinct Phocidae, nor in understanding seal diversity in deep time. This urged the reassessment of the genus. Before our review,  Monotherium  included five different species:  Monotherium aberratum ,  Monotherium affine , and  Monotherium delognii  from Belgium;  Monotherium gaudini  from Italy; and  Monotherium ?  wymani  from the east coast USA. In this work we redescribe the fossil record of the genus, retaining the type species  M. delognii .  Monotherium aberratum  and  M. affine  are reassigned to the new phocine genus  Frisiphoca .  Monotherium gaudini  is renamed and considered a stem-monachine ( Noriphoca gaudini ). The holotype of the monachine  M. ?  wymani  requires further study pending the discovery of new fossil material that could be attributed to the same taxon. Reinvestigating the stratigraphic context reveals that  N. gaudini  most likely represents one of the two oldest named phocid seals, or even the oldest, dated to the late Oligocene–earliest Miocene. Our results allow questioning the widespread idea that Phocidae originated in the western Atlantic and better appreciate their palaeobiogeography during the late Oligocene–Miocene interval in the North Atlantic realm.

A critical revision of the fossil record, stratigraphy and diversity of the Neogene seal genusMonotherium(Carnivora, Phocidae)