In Depth
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.
