Mawsoniidae

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 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.

Mawsoniidae

Lionel Cavin, André Piuz, Christophe Ferrante & Guillaume Guinot · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
LatimerioideiPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 179 million years on record.

The record covers at least 251.902 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 254.14 Mya to 66 Mya.

Permian — about 2 of 114 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 114 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 2 of 114 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 37 of 114 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 10 of 114 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 6 of 114 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 13 of 114 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 20 of 114 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 24 of 114 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 114 occurrences258–251 Mya — about 2 occurrences245–238 Mya — about 2 occurrences238–232 Mya — about 1 occurrence232–225 Mya — about 4 occurrences225–219 Mya — about 9 occurrences219–212 Mya — about 10 occurrences212–206 Mya — about 9 occurrences206–199 Mya — about 9 occurrences199–193 Mya — about 1 occurrence193–186 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences186–180 Mya — about 2 occurrences180–173 Mya — about 2 occurrences173–167 Mya — about 3 occurrences167–160 Mya — about 3 occurrences160–154 Mya — about 4 occurrences154–147 Mya — about 5 occurrences147–141 Mya — about 4 occurrences141–134 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences134–127 Mya — about 2 occurrences127–121 Mya — about 3 occurrences121–114 Mya — about 6 occurrences114–108 Mya — about 3 occurrences108–101 Mya — about 3 occurrences101–95 Mya — about 13 occurrences95–88 Mya — about 2 occurrences88–82 Mya — about 2 occurrences82–75 Mya — about 4 occurrences75–69 Mya — about 3 occurrences69–62 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences251.902 Mya72.2 Mya258 Mya62 Mya

114 occurrences of Mawsoniidae on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

114 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

44 formations

Lockatong — 40.81°N, 74.02°WLockatong — 40.20°N, 75.27°WLockatong — 40.17°N, 75.35°WLockatong — 40.13°N, 75.52°WLockatong — 40.42°N, 75.06°WChinle — 36.33°N, 106.47°WChinle — 36.09°N, 111.36°WChinle — 35.65°N, 111.12°WChinle — 34.68°N, 109.58°WChinle — 38.13°N, 109.18°WChinle — 38.28°N, 108.90°WChinle — 34.44°N, 109.46°WChinle — 38.15°N, 109.20°WBahariya — 28.40°N, 28.89°EBahariya — 28.43°N, 28.96°EBahariya — 28.45°N, 29.04°ERomualdo — 7.52°S, 39.57°WRomualdo — 7.51°S, 39.55°WRomualdo — 7.47°S, 39.76°WRomualdo — 7.55°S, 40.57°WBrejo Santo — 7.25°S, 39.12°WBrejo Santo — 7.50°S, 39.00°WBrejo Santo — 7.17°S, 39.31°WStockton — 40.86°N, 73.96°WStockton — 40.33°N, 74.65°WTacuarembó — 31.88°S, 56.02°WTacuarembó — 31.70°S, 55.96°WTacuarembó — 31.87°S, 55.90°WTacuarembó — 31.80°S, 56.13°WAnoual — 32.52°N, 3.11°WAnoual — 32.73°N, 3.14°WAnoual — 32.73°N, 3.15°WGara Sbaa — 30.51°N, 4.84°WGrès à Reptiles — 43.35°N, 2.95°EChangxing — 30.18°N, 115.06°EAïn el Guettar — 32.59°N, 10.08°EAïn el Guettar — 32.68°N, 10.17°EAliança — 8.56°S, 37.54°WShuttle Meadow — 41.42°N, 72.72°WShuttle Meadow — 41.40°N, 72.77°WEast Berlin — 41.45°N, 72.74°WEast Berlin — 41.60°N, 72.71°WStanleyville — 0.30°N, 25.40°EAnkazomihaboka — 16.17°S, 46.70°ESalvador — 12.78°S, 38.43°WAlcântara — 2.48°S, 44.46°WMissão Velha — 7.26°S, 39.14°WGara Samani — 29.67°N, 1.92°ELithofacies Association II — 35.87°N, 78.90°WCow Branch — 36.54°N, 79.67°WCabao — 31.93°N, 12.05°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Mawsoniidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 20 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 16 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mawsoniidae and its relatives

Late Triassic

Where Mawsoniidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.

Found in the same rock

553 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 99 sites for Mawsoniidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

63 references

Each of the 114 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 51 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Mawsoniidae

Credit
Lionel Cavin, André Piuz, Christophe Ferrante & Guillaume Guinot
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mawsoniidae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itLatimerioidei through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schultze 1993