Kaiwhekea

Kaiwhekea
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 70–69 Ma
↓
Restoration with size comparison
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Superorder: †Sauropterygia
Order: †Plesiosauria
Family: †Elasmosauridae
Clade: †Aristonectinae
Genus: †Kaiwhekea
Cruickshank & Fordyce, 2002
Species
  • Kaiwhekea katiki Cruickshank & Fordyce, 2002 (type)

Kaiwhekea is an extinct genus of plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian age) of what is now New Zealand.

History of discovery

Restoration

The type species, Kaiwhekea katiki, was first described by Arthur Cruickshank and Ewan Fordyce in 2002. Kaiwhekea was approximately 7 metres long and lived around 70-69 million years ago. The single known specimen, found in the Katiki Formation, is nearly complete, and is on display at the Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand.[1]

Classification

Kaiwhekea has been placed as an aristonectine plesiosaur close to Aristonectes (O'Keefe and Street, 2009). In 2010, Kaiwhekea was transferred to Leptocleididae,[2] but more recent analyses do not find the same result.[3]


See also

References

  1. ↑ Cruickshank, Arthur R.I.; Fordyce, R. Ewan (2002). "A new marine reptile (Sauropterygia) from New Zealand: further evidence for a Late Cretaceous austral radiation of cryptoclidid plesiosaurs". Palaeontology. 45 (3): 557–575. doi:10.1111/1475-4983.00249.
  2. ↑ Ketchum, H. F.; Benson, R. B. J. (2010). "Global interrelationships of Plesiosauria (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) and the pivotal role of taxon sampling in determining the outcome of phylogenetic analyses". Biological Reviews. 85: 361–392. PMID 20002391. doi:10.1111/j.1469-185X.2009.00107.x.
  3. ↑ O'Gorman, J.P.; Otero, R.A.; Hiller, N.; Simes, J.; Terezow, M. (2016). "Redescription of Tuarangisaurus keyesi (Sauropterygia; Elasmosauridae), a key species from the uppermost Cretaceous of the Weddellian Province: Internal skull anatomy and phylogenetic position". Cretaceous Research. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2016.11.014.
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