» Newly discovered fossil links frogs to salamanders

Newly discovered fossil links frogs to salamanders

Scientists recently discovered the 290 million-year-old fossil of a “frogamander”, which links modern frogs and salamanders and may provide the answer for the long debate about amphibian ancestry. Details about the evolution of frogs, salamanders and earthworm-like caecilians are still sketchy for scientists but this discovery will hopefully set the record straight.

“It’s a missing link that falls right between where the fossil record of the extinct form and the fossil record for the modern form begins,” said Jason Anderson of the University of Calgary, who led the study.

“It’s a perfect little frogamander,” he said.

The frogamanter, scientifically called Gerobatrachus, has features belonging to both frogs and salamanders, with fused ankle bones as seen only in salamanders, a wide skull and a backbone that resembles a mix of the two. The preliminary results is that modern amphibians are related to the ancient amphibian known as a temnospondyl, while the worm-like caecilians more closely related to the lepospondyls, another group of ancient amphibians.