QH 1 B4X jslH 5, PP-667-688 24 January 1977 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON THE ORIGIN OF THE HAWAIIAN MONK SEAL By Charles A. Repenning U.S. Geological Survey, MenJo Park, California 94025 AND Clayton E. Ray S/?i)Y/?son/c7/) Iiisfifufion, WasJiington, D.C. 20560 The Hawaiian monk seal, Monachus schauinslandi, is a remotely located, seldom seen, and possibly vanishing species (Kenyon, 1972). Clearly, it was derived from some Atlantic popnlation ( Ray, 1976b ) . Two other species are assigned to the genus: the Caribbean monk seal, M. tropicalis, that may not have been seen since 1952 (Kenyon, 1973) and the Medi-ten'anean monk seal, M. monachus, whose future survival must also be considered doubtful (Ronald, 1973). In 1956 Juditli E. King published a monograph on these three modern species of the genus Monachus. Her description included the comparative skeletal anatomy of the Caribbean and Mediterranean monk seals but omitted a discussion of the postcranial skeleton of the Hawaiian monk seal as no specimen was available to her. In 1961 King and Harrison described the skeletal and other anatomy of a juvenile of the Hawaiian monk seal, the first entire individual of tliis species to become avail-able at the British Museum (Natural History) and possibly at any major museum in the world, altlrough a juvenile skeleton has been in the collections of the U.S. National Museum of Natural History since 1913, and an adult skeleton since 1923. The skeleton, particularly the postcranial skeleton of the Ha-waiian monk seal, has in any case remained poorly known and has received very little published attention. On the basis of the examination by very few people of very few specimens, it has been widely assvimed that the three 58— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 89, 1977 (667)
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