Name:
Archaeonectrus
(Old swimmer).
Phonetic: Ar-kay-oh-nek-trus.
Named By: N.I. Novozhilov - 1964.
Synonyms: Plesiosaurus rostratus.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia,
Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria, Pliosauridae, Rhomaleosauridae.
Species: A. rostratus (type).
Diet: Piscivore.
Size: About 3.67 meters long.
Known locations: England.
Time period: Sinemurian of the Jurassic.
Fossil representation: Almost complete.
Originally described as a species of Plesiosaurus by Richard Owen in 1865, it was identified as a distinct genus just under a hundred years later in 1964. Archaeonectrus is now regarded as a rhomaleosaurid pliosaur, and would have been a predator of other marine organisms.
Further reading
- A monograph of the fossil Reptilia of the Liassic formations. Part I,
Sauropterygia. - Palaeontographical Soceity Monographs 17(75):1-40. -
Richard Owen - 1865.
- A new elasmosaurid plesiosaurian from the Early Cretaceous of Russia
marks an early attempt at neck elongation (supplement). Zoological
Journal of the Linnean Society. 192 (4): 1167–1194. - Valentin Fischer,
Nikolay G. Zverkov, Maxim S. Arkhangelsky, Ilya M. Stenshin, Ivan V.
Blagovetshensky & Gleb N. Uspensky - 2020.
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