TERRITORIALITY AND AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR IN MALE PINNIPEDS

64 pagesThe three families of pinnipeds include the Phocidae, "true seals", the Otariidae, sea lions and fur seals, and the Odobenidae, or of polygyny similarities in walruses. It is remarkable that the evolution in pinnipeds has generated such marked their behavior, while simultaneously creating extreme differences in the social and reproductive organization between the different taxa. The evolutionary relationship of the three families is not yet fully understood, for the fossil evidence is not complete. As a result, many ethologists theorize about the evolution of polygyny in pinnipeds while attempting to understand the evolutionary background of behavior. Most ethologists share a phyletic method of inferring behavioral evolution which has been described by Hinde and Tinbergen (1958) as follows, ...(sic)"by comparing the behavior traits of species whose phylogenetic relations are established (usually on the basis of morphology), it is possible to make hypotheses about the probable origins o f that behavior, and thus about the course of evolution.