Kaiwhekea facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Kaiwhekea |
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| Restoration with size comparison | |
Scientific classification  |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | †Sauropterygia |
| Order: | †Plesiosauria |
| Family: | †Elasmosauridae |
| Clade: | †Aristonectinae |
| Genus: | †Kaiwhekea Cruickshank & Fordyce, 2002 |
| Type species | |
| †Kaiwhekea katiki Cruickshank & Fordyce, 2002
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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 (23 ft) long and lived around 70-69 million years ago. The single known specimen, found in the Katiki Formation near Shag Point on the coast of Otago, is nearly complete, and is on display at the Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Classification
Kaiwhekea has been placed as an aristonectine plesiosaur close to Aristonectes (O'Keefe and Street, 2009). In 2010, Kaiwhekea was transferred to Leptocleididae, but more recent analyses do not find the same result.
The following cladogram shows the placement of Kaiwhekea within Elasmosauridae following an analysis by Rodrigo A. Otero, 2016:
| Elasmosauridae |
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See also
In Spanish: Kaiwhekea para niños
