Originally, this taxon was included within " Halisaurus ", but was placed in its own genus.
Although treated as synonymous with " Halisaurus " in the past, recent study recognizes it as valid.
"Halisaurus " is an important taxon in studies of mosasaur phylogeny as it has been repeatedly considered the sister group to all other mosasaurs.
"Pluridens " was synonymized with " Halisaurus " by Lindgren and Siverson ( 2005 ), but subsequent studies rejected the synonymy.
Later workers questioned the phylogenetic position and monophyly of " Halisaurus ", in part because of striking Greek " sauros " = " lizard " ).
Bardet et al . ( 2005, p . 464 ) diagnosed the Halsaurinae as all mosasaurs more closely related to " Halisaurus " than " Moanasaurus ".
However, by the late 1980s, some paleontologists began to suggest that " H . sternbergii " belonged in its own genus and that " Halisaurus " was polyphyletic.
A cladistic analysis of the Halisaurinae has indicated that " Eonatator " is the sister group to the clade " Halisaurus " and that it represents one of the most basal of known mosasaurid taxa.
Designation of this subfamily followed many decades of confusion surrounding the type genus, " Halisaurus, " especially " H . sternbergii ", a species from the Mooreville Chalk Formation of Alabama and the Niobrara Chalk of Kansas.
Originally, the species had been referred to the mosasaurine " Clidastes ", then to " Halisaurus " ( Russell, 1967; p . 369 ), which was also considered a member of the Mosasaurinae at that time.