A large seal’s humerus from the Late Miocene of Liessel (Noord-Brabant), the Netherlands

Between many fossils of marine mammals that are kept in the collection of Museum Klok en Peel in Asten (The Netherlands), seals (Phocidae) from Liessel are well represented. Although many pieces are fragmentary due to the sand extraction process, some of them still show characteristics enabling a closer ranking in the phocid family. One of those not yet investigated fossils, a distal part of a well-preserved relatively large humerus, was studied more in detail, the results are presented here. The fossil exhibits a close resemblance to a humerus of Frisiphoca aberrata (Van Beneden, 1877), a seal species known from the Miocene of Belgium. It is the first record from The Netherlands.

Peer Review

Late Miocene, Phocidae, humerus, Noord-Brabant, The Netherlands