Aggiosaurus is known only from its
holotype, an unnumbered, poorly preserved
upper jaw collected by H. Ambayrac in 1912, preserved in
limestone which is now housed in the
Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Nice. It was collected from the late
Oxfordian-aged locality of Cap d'Aggio-La Turbie, in
Nice,
France. As the type specimen is poorly preserved it is sometimes considered to be a
nomen dubium. Young & Andrade (2009) suggested that
Aggiosaurus is a
junior synonym of
Dakosaurus, and that
A. nicaeensis is referrable to
Dakosaurus as a distinct species provisionally. They based this referral on its unusually large dentition (apicobasal length in excess of ) that thought to be unique to species of
Dakosaurus among all other
thalattosuchians.
Aggiosaurus actually has the largest dentition of any known metriorhynchid (up to in apicobasal length), although further
phylogenetic analyses found that large robust teeth present also in other geosaurins, such as
Torvoneustes. Young
et al. (2012) resurrected the genus name
Plesiosuchus for
D. manselii (which also present this trait) as their phylogenetic analysis found a
paraphyletic Dakosaurus and suggested more
basal position for it within
Geosaurini than previously thought. As the presence of unusually large dentition (apicobasal length in excess of ) was considered to be
homoplastic among geosaurins,
Aggiosaurus cannot be considered a junior synonym of either
Dakosaurus or
Plesiosuchus. ==Etymology==