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.
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 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".