Kaiwhekea

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

History of discovery[]

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]

The following cladogram shows the placement of Kaiwhekea within Elasmosauridae following an analysis by Rodrigo A. Otero, 2016:^[4]

Elasmosauridae

Eromangasaurus carinognathus

Callawayasaurus colombiensis

Libonectes morgani

	Tuarangisaurus keyesi

	Thalassomedon haningtoni

CM Zfr 115

	Hydrotherosaurus alexandrae

	Futabasaurus suzukii

Aristonectinae

Kaiwhekea katiki

Alexandronectes zealandiensis

Morturneria seymourensis

	Aristonectes parvidens

	Aristonectes quiriquinensis

Elasmosaurinae

Terminonatator pointeixensis

	Elasmosaurus platyurus

	Albertonectes vanderveldei

Styxosaurus sp. (="Hydralmosaurus serpentinus")

	Styxosaurus snowii

	Styxosaurus browni

In popular culture[]

Kaiwhekea appeared in the video game Jurassic World: The Game.
Kaiwhekea appears in the video game Path of Titans as the first aquatic.

References[]

↑ (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.
↑ (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. DOI:10.1111/j.1469-185X.2009.00107.x. PMID 20002391.
↑ (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.
↑ (2016) "Taxonomic reassessment of Hydralmosaurus as Styxosaurus: new insights on the elasmosaurid neck evolution throughout the Cretaceous". PeerJ 4: e1777. DOI:10.7717/peerj.1777. PMID 27019781.

External links[]

Kaiwhekea, University of Otago, New Zealand

[Cruickshank-1] (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.

[Ketchum2010-2] (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. DOI:10.1111/j.1469-185X.2009.00107.x. PMID 20002391.

[redesc-3] (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.

[4] (2016) "Taxonomic reassessment of Hydralmosaurus as Styxosaurus: new insights on the elasmosaurid neck evolution throughout the Cretaceous". PeerJ 4: e1777. DOI:10.7717/peerj.1777. PMID 27019781.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]