Kairuku waewaeroa

Kairuku is an extinct genus of penguin. It contains three species, K. grebneffi, K. waitaki and K. waewaeroa. This taxon is known from bones from 27 MYA, from the Kokoamu Greensand Formation of New Zealand. It was historically referred to as Palaeeudyptes.

Kairuku waewaeroa

Tim Bertelink · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
KairukuPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Sphenisciformes

Time the record covers

At most 7.3 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 34.6 Mya and 27.3 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Eocene — about 0 of 1 occurrenceEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 1 occurrenceOligocene35–35 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences33–33 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences33–33 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences33–33 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences32–32 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences32–32 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences32–32 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences31–31 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences31–31 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences30–30 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29–29 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29–29 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences28–28 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences35.1 Mya26.8 Mya

1 occurrence of Kairuku waewaeroa on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

1 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

Glen Massey — 38.13°S, 174.82°E

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

Kairuku waewaeroa and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Kairuku waewaeroa and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

8 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Kairuku waewaeroa, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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 1 occurrence 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 Kairuku waewaeroa

Credit
Tim Bertelink
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Kairuku waewaeroa was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

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 itKairuku through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Giovanardi et al. 2021