Tangaroasaurus
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. 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.
| 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 | |
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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. The genus was described as an odontocete cetacean in 1979 by R. E. Fordyce.
The status of the genus as a cetacean remains under discussion.
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.