title: Pliophoca
text: # Pliophoca
  
  Pliophoca is an extinct genus of seal in the family Phocidae.
  
  ## Fossil record
  
  This genus is known from late Pliocene (Piacenzian) marine deposits in northern Italy. Numerous disassociated monachine remains from the Lee Creek Mine of North Carolina were assigned by Koretsky and Ray (2008), but Berta et al. (2015) rejected the referral and suggested that they may be distinct, which was confirmed by Dewaele et al. (2018), who erected Auroraphoca for two of the Lee Creek specimens that Koretsky and Ray (2008) assigned to Pliophoca.
  
  This fossil species of seal, ancestor of the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) has been found only in late Pliocene (Piacenzian) deposits at Orciano and Volterra in Tuscany. It was a species endemic to the Mediterranean Sea.
  
  