Kaiwhekea katiki Cruikshank & Fordyce, 2002
Reptilia
Sauropterygia
Plesiosauria
Plesiosauroidea
Elasmosauridae
Aristonectinae
Late Cretaceous
Katiki Fm (Maastrichtian)
New Zealand
Length: 6.5 m
This plesiosaur from New Zealand had an unusual short skull with some 40 needle-like teeth in each jaw indicating it probably fed on soft bodied animals. It is related to the South American Aristonectes and is known from a partial articulated skeleton including the skull. Its generic name derived from the Maori for "squid eater".
September 28, 2014
All images on this site are copyrighted to Nobu Tamura under a Creative Commons 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license meaning that you are free to use them for non commercial purposes as long as you properly credit the author (© N. Tamura). Questions: contact me at nobu dot tamura at yahoo dot com.