Mawsoniidae

{{Short description|Extinct family of coelacanths}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| name = Mawsoniids

| taxon = Mawsoniidae

| authority = Schultze 1993

| image = Mawsonia scaling.png

| image_caption = Skeleton of a very large specimen of Mawsonia compared to a human

| image2 = Fig 29. Graulia branchiodonta gen. et sp. nov (cropped).png

| image2_caption = Graulia branchiodonta skeleton

| fossil_range = {{fossil range|Triassic|Cretaceous}}

| subdivision_ranks = Genera

| subdivision = * †Alcoveria

• †Axelrodichthys
• †Chinlea
• †Diplurus
• †Graulia
• †Lualabaea
• †Mawsonia (type)
• †Trachymetopon
• †Changxingia?
• †Luopingcoelacanthus?
• †Yunnancoelacanthus?

}}

Mawsoniidae is an extinct family of prehistoric coelacanth fishes which lived during the Triassic to Cretaceous periods. Members of the family are distinguished from their sister group, the Latimeriidae (which contains the living coelacanths of the genus Latimeria) by the presence of ossified ribs, a coarse rugose texture on the dermatocranium and cheek bones, the absence of the suboperculum and the spiracular, and reduction or loss of the descending process of the supratemporal. 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.{{Cite journal|last1=Cavin|first1=Lionel|last2=Cupello|first2=Camila|last3=Yabumoto|first3=Yoshitaka|last4=Léo|first4=Fragoso|last5=Deersi|first5=Uthumporn|last6=Brito|first6=Paul M.|date=2019|title=Phylogeny and evolutionary history of mawsoniid coelacanths|url=http://www.kmnh.jp/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/A17-3-Cavin.pdf|journal=Bulletin of the Kitakyushu Museum of Natural History and Human History, Series A|volume=17|pages=3–13}} Mawsoniids represent among the youngest known coelacanths, with the youngest known remains of the freshwater genus Axelrodichthys from France and an indeterminate marine species from Morocco being from the final stage of the Cretaceous, the Maastrichtian, roughly equivalent in age to the youngest known fossils of latimeriids.{{Cite journal|last1=Cavin|first1=Lionel|last2=Buffetaut|first2=Eric|last3=Dutour|first3=Yves|last4=Garcia|first4=Géraldine|last5=Le Loeuff|first5=Jean|last6=Méchin|first6=Annie|last7=Méchin|first7=Patrick|last8=Tong|first8=Haiyan|last9=Tortosa|first9=Thierry|last10=Turini|first10=Eric|last11=Valentin|first11=Xavier|date=2020-06-05|editor-last=Carnevale|editor-first=Giorgio|title=The last known freshwater coelacanths: New Late Cretaceous mawsoniid remains (Osteichthyes: Actinistia) from Southern France|journal=PLOS ONE|language=en|volume=15|issue=6|pages=e0234183|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0234183|issn=1932-6203|pmc=7274394|pmid=32502171|bibcode=2020PLoSO..1534183C |doi-access=free}}{{Cite journal|last1=Brito|first1=Paulo M.|last2=Martill|first2=David M.|last3=Eaves|first3=Ian|last4=Smith|first4=Roy E.|last5=Cooper|first5=Samuel L.A.|date=June 2021|title=A marine Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) coelacanth from North Africa|url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S019566712100015X|journal=Cretaceous Research|language=en|volume=122|pages=104768|doi=10.1016/j.cretres.2021.104768|bibcode=2021CrRes.12204768B | issn=0195-6671|s2cid=233551515}} Species of Mawsonia and Trachymetopon are known to have exceeded 5 metres in length, making them among the largest known bony fish to have ever existed.{{Cite journal|last1=Cavin|first1=Lionel|last2=Piuz|first2=André|last3=Ferrante|first3=Christophe|last4=Guinot|first4=Guillaume|date=2021-06-03|title=Giant Mesozoic coelacanths (Osteichthyes, Actinistia) reveal high body size disparity decoupled from taxic diversity|journal=Scientific Reports|language=en|volume=11|issue=1|pages=11812|doi=10.1038/s41598-021-90962-5|pmid=34083600|issn=2045-2322|pmc=8175595|bibcode=2021NatSR..1111812C }}