Aristonectinae

Aristonectinae is a subfamily of plesiosaurs in the family Elasmosauridae. It includes the Late Cretaceous plesiosaurs Aristonectes and Kaiwhekea, traditionally grouped with the Late Jurassic Tatenectes and Kimmerosaurus in the family Aristonectidae. They are distinguished by the fact that they have a very enlarged skull compared to the width of the body, a moderately short neck and more than 25 teeth in the maxilla.^[1]

Aristonectinae Temporal range: Campanian-Maastrichtian ~72–66 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Life restoration of Aristonectes parvidens
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Superorder:	†Sauropterygia
Order:	†Plesiosauria
Family:	†Elasmosauridae
Clade:	†Weddellonectia
Subfamily:	†Aristonectinae Otero et al., 2012
Genera
†Alexandronectes †Aristonectes †Kaiwhekea †Morturneria †Wunyelfia

An alternative hypothesis suggested by F. Robin O'Keefe and Hallie Street in 2009 is that aristonectines instead belong to a family—Aristonectidae—which is unrelated to elasmosaurids and is instead the sister group to Polycotylidae within the larger clade "Cryptocleidoidea".^[2]