The genus has been used as a wastebasket taxon for thalattosuchian fossils for over two centuries, and almost all known historical species of teleosauroid have been included within it at one point.

The genus has remained a wastebasket, with numerous species still included under the label ‘Steneosaurus’, many of which are unrelated to each other (either paraphyletic or polyphyletic with respect to each other and other genera of teleosauroids).

[3] It was discovered in three pieces by abbot Charles Bacheley (1716-1795) in the Vaches Noires near Villers-sur-Mer (Calvados, France).

[4] Bacheley offered these pieces to Alexandre Besson (1725-1809) who had built up an important cabinet of fossils and minerals in Paris.

Besson gave one of the pieces (the posterior portion) to Barthélémy Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741-1819), professor of geology in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris.