Ion acoustic waves (IAWs) are theoretically researched in a magneto-rotating plasma with cold ion fluid and (r,q) distributed electrons. The reductive perturbation method (RPM) is used to simplify fluid plasma equations, the relevant ZK and mZK equations and their solitary solutions are given. Small-k expansion method is applied to obtain the instability growth rates of ZK and mZK IAWs. The flatness and tail parameters modify the amplitude, width, soliton energy and instability growth rate for both ZK and mZK IAWs. There only exist negative ZK IAWs and positive mZK IAWs. It is noted that the increscent flatness and tail parameters result in the increasing amplitude, width, soliton energy and growth rate of ZK and mZK IAWs. These results will be helpful in understanding the plasma dynamics for a magneto-rotating plasma system containing (r,q) distributed electrons in Saturn’s magnetosphere.