Kakuru

rainbow serpent

• Kakuru · Guyani (Australian Aboriginal) · rainbow serpent (ancestral serpent spirit)

Kakuru is named after the Kakuru, a rainbow serpent figure in the mythology of the Guyani people, an Aboriginal Australian group from South Australia. The name was chosen because the fossil bones were found to be opalised — they had been replaced by precious opal — giving them a beautiful, rainbow-like iridescence. It was also an acknowledgement of the Indigenous heritage of the land where the fossils were discovered. The name thus simultaneously honours the local Aboriginal culture and reflects the striking appearance of the specimen.

Named by

Molnar and Pledge

Year named

1980

Period

Early Cretaceous

Stage

Aptian

Found in

Andamooka Opal Field, Marree Formation (Aptian, Eromanga Basin), South Australia, Australia

Kakuru kujaniis known only from a single opalised tibia (lower leg bone), making it very fragmentary and difficult to classify with confidence. It is generally considered a nomen dubium by most researchers because the material is too incomplete to reliably diagnose the genus. It is thought to have been a small theropod dinosaur, possibly a coelurosaur. The opalised nature of the fossil is unusual and was part of the inspiration for the name.