Kawanectes
Kawanectes was a small marine reptile with a long neck that lived in the seas of Patagonia near the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. It was an elasmosaurid plesiosaur, but much smaller than its giant relatives, only about as long as a small car.1
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Fun facts
Kawanectes is one of the smallest elasmosaurids ever found, with an adult body length of only 3.8 to 4.2 metres (12 to 14 feet).1
Its name comes from the Kawas Sea, an ancient ocean that covered Patagonia during the Late Cretaceous.1
One specimen of Kawanectes was found with 389 gastroliths, or stomach stones, which may have helped it digest food or control buoyancy.1
Kawanectes had a high humerus-to-femur length ratio of about 1.2, meaning its upper arm bone was longer than its thigh bone, which is unusual among elasmosaurids.1
Scientists think Kawanectes may have been sexually dimorphic, with females possibly larger than males.1
Kawanectes lived in a marginal marine environment, probably an estuary, not the open ocean, and it was smaller than open-ocean plesiosaurs.1
Most asked questions about Kawanectes
?How big was Kawanectes?
Kawanectes was about 3.8 to 4.2 metres (12 to 14 feet) long as an adult, which is small for an elasmosaurid.12
?What did Kawanectes eat?
Kawanectes likely ate small marine animals, and its jaw shape suggests it could snap its jaws shut quickly for fast bites, but not with a strong bite force.2
?Where did Kawanectes live?
Kawanectes lived in the seas of Patagonia, in what is now Argentina, during the Late Cretaceous, in a coastal or estuarine environment.12
?Was Kawanectes a dinosaur?
No, Kawanectes was a plesiosaur, a marine reptile, not a dinosaur.1
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Kawanectes
- Named by
- O'Gorman 20163
- Group
- Plesiosaurs
- Family / clade
- Elasmosauridae3
- Classification
- Plesiosauria > Elasmosauridae > Sauropterygia3
- Age of the rocks
- 72 to 66 million years (Maastrichtian)3
- Rock formations
- La Colonia, Allen3
- Countries
- Argentina3
- Fossil records
- 8 in the Paleobiology Database3
- Discovery
- Kawanectes was first named as a species of Trinacromerum in 1985 by Gasparini and Goñi, but in 2016 José P. O'Gorman gave it its own genus, Kawanectes, based on new fossils.1
- Still debated
- Scientists are not sure exactly how many neck and tail vertebrae Kawanectes had, because the known fossils are incomplete.1
Where the facts come from
- Kawanectes (en.wikipedia.org)
- First record of Kawanectes lafquenianum (Plesiosauria, Elasmosauridae) from the La Colonia Formation of Argentina, with comments on the mandibular morphology of elasmosaurids: Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology: Vol 44 , No 1 - Get Access (tandfonline.com)
- Kawanectes in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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Elasmosaurus
Pliosaurus
Plesiosaurus
Cimoliasaurus
Colymbosaurus
Trinacromerum
Tyrannosaurus
Triceratops
Velociraptor
Spinosaurus
Ankylosaurus
Parasaurolophus