Traskasaura sandrae

Traskasaura is an extinct genus of basal elasmosaurid plesiosaurs from the Late Cretaceous Haslam Formation of British Columbia, Canada. The genus contains a single species, Traskasaura sandrae, known from three partial skeletons. It is the first elasmosaurid discovered in and named from British Columbia.

Traskasaura sandrae

Uncredited · 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
TraskasauraPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Environment
marinePBDB, for Plesiosauria

Time the record covers

At most 2.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 85.7 Mya and 83.6 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 3 of 3 occurrencesLate Cretaceous86–86 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences86–86 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences86–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences86.2 Mya83.1 Mya

3 occurrences of Traskasaura sandrae on record, most of them in the Late 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

3 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

Haslam — 49.69°N, 125.05°WHaslam — 49.60°N, 124.98°WHaslam — 49.73°N, 125.11°W

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

Traskasaura sandrae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Traskasaura sandrae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

No other named taxon is catalogued from any of those sites.

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Traskasaura sandrae, and this reads all of them.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 3 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 Traskasaura sandrae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Traskasaura sandrae 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 itTraskasaura through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. O’Keefe et al. 2025