Kaganaias hakusanensis

Kaganaias is an extinct genus of basal and oldest dolichosaur that lived in what is now Japan during the Early Cretaceous. Kaganaias was semi-aquatic and is the only known aquatic squamate from before the Cenomanian stage of the Cretaceous. It is also the first to be found in an inland area, instead of on the coast where aquatic squamates are commonly found. Its generic name is derived from Kaga Province, the old name for the Ishikawa Prefecture where the specimens were found, while the species name hakusanensis comes from the mountain that gives its name to Hakusan the city near its find site. The geological formation in which the specimens were found, the Kuwajima Formation, stands alongside the Tetori River and has been the site of numerous other finds including molluscs, dinosaurs, fish, and pterosaurs.

Kaganaias hakusanensis

Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com ) · CC BY 2.5 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
KaganaiasPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 4.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 125.77 Mya and 121.4 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 2 of 2 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous126–126 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126–126 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126–125 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences125–124 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences124–123 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences123–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences122–121 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126.3 Mya120.9 Mya

2 occurrences of Kaganaias hakusanensis on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

2 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Kuwajima — 36.17°N, 136.63°E

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The named rock units Kaganaias hakusanensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Kaganaias hakusanensis and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Kaganaias hakusanensis and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

74 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Kaganaias hakusanensis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Kaganaias hakusanensis

Credit
Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com )
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itKaganaias through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Evans et al. 2006