About: Edaphodon kawai

Edaphodon kawai was a prehistoric chimaeriform fish species belonging to the genus Edaphodon, of which all the species are now extinct. Edaphodon kawai was a type of rabbitfish, a cartilaginous fish related to sharks and rays, and indeed, some rabbitfishes are still alive today. E. kawai is one of numerous Edaphodon species, but is the only one which has been discovered in the Southern Hemisphere, near New Zealand. Indeed, only a handful of other Chimaeroformes have been discovered in the Southern Hemisphere. They first appeared during the Devonian period around 415 to 360 million years ago, but the only known specimen of E. kawai has been dated to the Late Cretaceous at the height of the rabbitfish's reign. Its scientific name, kawai, means "fish" in the language of the Moriori, a Pacific