Mawsoniids Temporal range:Triassic–Cretaceous PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Skeleton of a very large specimen ofMawsonia compared to a human
Graulia branchiodonta skeleton
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinistia
Order:	Coelacanthiformes
Suborder:	Latimerioidei
Family:	†Mawsoniidae Schultze 1993
Genera
†Alcoveria †Axelrodichthys †Chinlea †Diplurus †Graulia †Lualabaea †Mawsonia (type) †Trachymetopon †Changxingia? †Luopingcoelacanthus? †Yunnancoelacanthus?

Mawsoniidae is an extinctfamily of prehistoriccoelacanth fishes which lived during theTriassic toCretaceous periods. Members of the family are distinguished from their sister group, theLatimeriidae (which contains the living coelacanths of the genusLatimeria) by the presence of ossified ribs, a coarse rugose texture on thedermatocranium and cheek bones, the absence of thesuboperculum and thespiracular, and reduction or loss of the descending process of thesupratemporal.^[1]

Mawsoniids are known from North America, Europe, South America, Africa, Madagascar and Asia. Unlike Latimeriidae, which are exclusively marine, Mawsoniidae were also native to freshwater and brackish environments.^[1]

Mawsoniids represent among the youngest known coelacanths, with the youngest known remains of the freshwater genusAxelrodichthys from France and an indeterminate marine species from Morocco being from the final stage of the Cretaceous, theMaastrichtian, roughly equivalent in age to the youngest known fossils of latimeriids.^[2][3] Species ofMawsonia andTrachymetopon are known to have exceeded 5 metres in length, making them among the largest known bony fish to have ever existed.^[4]

The following cladogram is after Torino, Soto and Perea, 2021.^[5]

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• Mawsoniidae
• Triassic bony fish
• Jurassic bony fish
• Cretaceous bony fish
• Triassic first appearances
• Cretaceous extinctions
• Coelacanth families
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