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''Aristonectes'' (meaning 'best swimmer') is an extinct genus of plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous of what is now South America and Antarctica. The type species is ''Aristonectes parvidens'', first named by Cabrera in 1941. ''Aristonectes'' has been classified variously since the 1941 description, but a 2003 review of plesiosaurs conducted by Gasparini ''et al.'' found that ''Aristonectes'' was most closely related to elasmosaurid plesiosaurs like ''Elasmosaurus''. A similar plesiosaur, ''Morturneria'', may be a junior synonym of ''Aristonectes'', the study found. ''Aristonectes'' has been recently placed within its own family, along with ''Tatenectes'', ''Kaiwhekea'', and ''Kimmerosaurus'', by O'Keefe and Street (2009), as sister family of the polycotylid cryptoclidoids, but an even more recent study (Otero ''et al.'', 2014) has shown ''Aristonectes'' to be a derived Elasmosaurid, thus making Aristonectidae synonymous with Elasmosauridae. ==See also== * List of plesiosaur genera * Timeline of plesiosaur research 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aristonectes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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