Mawsonia (fish)

Mawsonia
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 110–95 Ma
skull
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sarcopterygii
Order: Coelacanthiformes
Family: Mawsoniidae
Genus: Mawsonia
Woodward, 1907
Species
  • M. brasiliensis Yabumoto, 2002
  • M. gigas Woodward, 1907 (type)
  • M. lavocati Tabaste, 1963
  • M. libyca Weiler, 1935
  • M. tegamensis Wenz, 1975
  • M. ubangiana Casier, 1961

Mawsonia is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth fish, and the largest of this group, up to several metres long. It lived during the Cretaceous period (Albian stage, about 99 to 112 million years ago). Fossils have been found in Africa and South America. Mawsonia was first described by British palaeontologist Arthur Smith Woodward in 1907.

Description

Mawsonia was a large coelacanth which lived in the Kem Kem and Bahariya Formation in North Africa, during the Cenomanian. Mawsonia was around 4–6 meters in length, around the size of a rhinoceros (Though specimens in South America mean they could potentially get bigger). Like modern coelocanths, Mawsonia was possibly an oppurtunistic carnivore that could have eaten fish and large invertabrates.[1]

References

External links

Sources


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, May 03, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.