| Malawania Temporal range: Early Cretaceous,
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| Restoration | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | †Ichthyosauria |
| Family: | †Ichthyosauridae |
| Genus: | †Malawania Fischer et al., 2013 |
| Type species | |
| †Malawania anachronus Fischer et al., 2013
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Malawania is an extinct genus of basal thunnosaur ichthyosaur known from the middle Early Cretaceous (Hauterivian or Barremian stage) of Iraq. The type species is Malawania anachronus and it was named by Valentin Fischer, Robert M. Appleby, Darren Naish, Jeff Liston, Riding, J. B., Brindley, S. and Pascal Godefroit in 2013 based on specimen NHMUK PV R6682. [1] It is unusual as it is much more primitive than other Cretaceous ichthyosaurs, being most closely related to Ichthyosaurus from the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic, over 70 million years earlier than Malawania, with all other known ichthyosaurs from the Late Jurassic onwards belonging to the family Ophthalmosauridae.
- ^ Fischer, V.; Appleby, R. M.; Naish, D.; Liston, J.; Riding, J. B.; Brindley, S.; Godefroit, P. (2013). "A basal thunnosaurian from Iraq reveals disparate phylogenetic origins for Cretaceous ichthyosaurs". Biology Letters. 9 (4): 20130021. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2013.0021. PMC 3730615. PMID 23676653.