Coelognathosuchia is an extinct clade of neosuchian crocodyliforms that includes Goniopholididae and Pholidosauridae, two families of superficially crocodile-like aquatic crocodyliforms from the Mesozoic. Martin et al. named the clade after finding goniopholidids and pholidosaurids to group together in their phylogenetic analysis of crocodyliformevolutionary relationships. In their analysis, Pholidosauridae was monophyletic and Goniopholididae was paraphyletic, being an assemblage of successively more basal taxa within Coelognathosuchia. Coelognathosuchia itself was positioned near the base of the larger clade Neosuchia as the sister group to a clade containing the Early Cretaceous neosuchian Bernissartia and Eusuchia, the group that includes all modern crocodilians and their closest extinct relatives. Martin et al. named Coelognathosuchia from the Greek and jugal bones in both goniopholidids and pholidosaurs. Other diagonostic features of Coelognathosuchia include orbits that are narrower than the frontal bone that separates them and smaller than the supratemporal fenestrae behind them, a notch between the premaxilla and maxilla at the tip of the snout, and the reduction or absence of the antorbital fenestrae. A close relationship between Goniopholididae and Pholidosauridae conflicts with the hypothesis that pholidosaurids are instead more closely related to the familyDyrosauridae. This alternate phylogeny was found in many analyses, including Jouve et al., Pol and Gasparini, and deAndradeet al., who named the clade Tethysuchia. In both studies, Goniopholididae was found to be a more distantly related clade within Neosuchia. In their description of Pholidosaurus specimens from southwestern France, Martin and colleagues reiterated their opinion that Dyrosauridae is not as closely related to Pholidosauridae as stated by previous authors by pointing to numerous shared characters between the Cherves-de-Cognac pholidosaurid remains and Goniopholididae.
