Leiopelma auroraensis
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| Worthy , 1987 |
Leiopelma auroraensis is an extinct frog from the New Zealand primeval frog family(Leiopelmatidae). The species is only known from the holotype, which the New Zealand paleozoologist Trevor H. Worthy unearthed in February 1984 in the Aurora Cave near Lake Te Anau in the Fiordland region of New Zealand.
features
Leiopelma auroraensis was a sturdy frog with an estimated head-trunk length of 60 mm. The front legs and the rear legs were almost the same length. On the basis of bone comparisons of adult animals of the Leiopelma species, Worthy calculated a similarity of 77.8 percent to the recent form Leiopelma hochstetteri and a similarity of 86.9 percent to the also extinct species Leiopelma markhami .
die out
Leiopelma auroraensis probably died out over 2000 years ago after the introduction of the Pacific rat ( Rattus exulans ) to New Zealand.
literature
- Trevor H. Worthy & Richard N. Holdaway: The Lost World of the Moa. Prehistoric Life of New Zealand . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2002, ISBN 0-253-34034-9 , pp. 464-466
- Trevor H. Worthy: Paleoecological information concerning members of the frog genus Leiopelma (Leiopelmatidae) in New Zealand . In: Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand Issue 17, 1987: p. 409-420.