Tangaroasaurus Temporal range:
Miocene
| |
---|---|
A tooth from the type fossil | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Infraorder: | Cetacea |
Family: | † Squalodontidae |
Genus: | †
Tangaroasaurus Benham, 1936 |
Species: | †T. kakanuiensis
|
Binomial name | |
†Tangaroasaurus kakanuiensis Benham, 1936
| |
Synonyms | |
|
Tangaroasaurus is an extinct genus of squalodontid whale from the Miocene of New Zealand. It contains a single species, Tangaroasaurus kakanuiensis. Similar to Basilosaurus and its close relative Squalodon, it was originally thought to be a species of marine reptile. [1] [2] Parts of the Holotype are presumably lost. Its name comes from Tangaroa, the Maori god of the sea, while the suffix -saurus comes from the Latin word for reptile, the group that Tangaroasaurus was originally placed in.
The type fossil was found in a grey clay deposit at All Day Bay and consists of a jaw bearing a few teeth, measuring 5 cm (2.0 in) each. The original describer of the type specimen, William Blaxland Benham, described it as a reptile, either a dinosaur such as Megalosaurus or an late surviving ichthyosaur. [3] The genus was described as an odontocete cetacean in 1979 by R. E. Fordyce. [4]
The status of the genus as a cetacean remains under discussion. [5]
Fossils known from the same geological formation, the All Day Bay formation and Gee Greensand Formation, include an unnamed species of Squalodelphinidae and a species of Prosqualodon. [6]