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High-palaeolatitude plesiosaur, mosasaur and, more rarely, dinosaur fossils are well known from the Maungataniwha Sandstone Member of the Tahora Formation in Mangahouanga Stream, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. A palynological investigation of strata exposed along Mangahouanga Stream and of transported boulders hosting vertebrate fossils reveals well-preserved assemblages dominated by terrestrial pollen and spores but also including marine dinoflagellate cysts in some samples. The palynofacies are strongly dominated by wood fragments including charcoal; one outcrop sample and the sample taken from a boulder hosting plesiosaur vertebrae contain entirely terrestrially derived palynoassemblages, suggesting a freshwater habitat for at least some of the plesiosaurs. The host unit spans the Santonian to lowermost Maastrichtian, while the key pollen taxa Nothofagidites senectus and Tricolpites lilliei, together with the dinocyst Isabelidinium pellucidum and the megaspore Grapnelispora evansii, indicate a late Campanian...

RAINE, J.I., June, 2008. Zonate lycophyte spores from New Zealand Cretaceous to Paleogene strata. Alcheringa 32, 99–127. ISSN 0311-5518. The morphology, taxonomy, and stratigraphic occurrence of zonate lycophytic spores recovered from New Zealand Cretaceous to Paleogene strata are reviewed. Five species of Perotrilites include the new species Perotrilites otagoensis described from the Late Cretaceous, and Kraeuselisporites papillatus Harris now transferred to this genus. Kraeuselisporites is represented by a new Late Cretaceous species, Kraeuselisporites alexii. Evansispora, based on the new species Evansispora senonica from Late Cretaceous to Paleocene strata, is proposed for distally reticulate zonate spores of the type met with in modern Lycopodium volubile G. Forst.; Eocene and younger populations are distinguished as Evansispora cenozoica sp. nov. Kraeuselisporites laceratus Norris is transferred to Evansispora. Waiparaspora is established for reticulate zonate spores of different morphology, based o...