Undetermined undetermined

O’Gorman, José Patricio & Otero, Rodrigo A., 2023, Revision of the short-necked Cretaceous plesiosaurians from New Zealand, Comptes Rendus Palevol 22 (6), pp. 77-90 : 82

Elasmosauridae indet .

( Fig. 3 G-K)

Pliosauridae gen. et sp. indet . – Wiffen & Moisley 1986: 243.

MATERIAL. — NPC CD 458 , a specimen comprising a left and right propodial, single sacral vertebra, and rib section ( Fig. 3 G-K).

LOCALITY AND HORIZON. — Mangahouanga Stream , a northern tributary of Te Hoe River , inland Hawke’s Bay, North Island, New Zealand. Maungataniwha Sandstone Member of the Tahora Formation. Upper Campanian-lower Maastrichtian ( Vajda & Raine 2010; Fig. 1).

REMARKS

The NPC CD 458 propodial has features typically present among Weddellian elasmosaurids, with features slightly different from elasmosaurids elswhere. These features are, particularly, the prominent, sub-hemispherical articular head/capitulum, stocky femoral shaft and high dorsal tuberosity of the propodial ( Otero et al. 2015), while the sacral centrum has platycelous faces and a very narrow neural arch compared to the centrum breadth ( Gasparini et al. 1984; Cruickshank & Fordyce 2002; Otero et al. 2015; O’Gorman et al. 2015, 2019). Therefore, it is reassessed as an indeterminate elasmosaurid. Moreover, the general outline is remarkably similar to that of MLP 89-III-3- 1, a specimen from Antarctica referred to as an indeterminate aristonectine ( O’Gorman et al. 2019).