Gerobatrachus
Gerobatrachus | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gerobatrachus |
||||||||||
Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||
Sacmarium ( Unterperm ) | ||||||||||
290 million years | ||||||||||
Locations | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Systematics | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Scientific name | ||||||||||
Gerobatrachus | ||||||||||
Anderson et al. , 2008 | ||||||||||
Art | ||||||||||
|
Gerobatrachus is a genus of small extinct terrestrial vertebrates belonging to the Temnospondyles group that lived in the Sacmarium (Early Permian ) of North Americaaround 290 million years ago. The only species described in 2008is the eleven centimeter long type species G. hottoni .
The genus name of the fossil is derived from the Greek geros (= ancient) and batrachus (= frog). The species epithet honors Nicholas Hotton, a deceased vertebrate palaeontologist from the Natural History Museum.
According to the first description of a research group at the University of Calgary , the anatomical features of Gerobatrachus suggest that this animal was close to the common ancestor of the frog amphibian and the tail amphibian. A mixture of frog and salamander features (" mosaic shape ") was found especially on the skull, vertebrae and teeth . Based on the anatomical findings, the separation of the lines of development of the two groups is determined to be between 275 and 240 million years ago. With the help of the so-called molecular clock , the last common ancestor of the two lines had been dated to 300 million years ago (late carbon ).
The type specimen of G. hottoni was discovered in 1995 by Peter Kroehler, a scientific assistant for vertebrate paleontology at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington DC), in Baylor County , Texas ; and is held under archive number USNM 489135 in the Natural History Museum in Washington.
Web links
- A missing link settles debate over the origin of frogs and salamanders. On: eurekalert.org of May 21, 2008
- "Frog-amander" Fossil May be Amphibian Missing Link. On: nationalgeographic.com of May 21, 2008
Individual evidence
- ^ Jason S. Anderson et al .: A stem batrachian from the Early Permian of Texas and the origin of frogs and salamanders. In: Nature . Volume 453, 2008, pp. 515-518. doi : 10.1038 / nature06865