TY - JOUR
T1 - First occurrence of a frog-like batrachian (Amphibia) in the Late Triassic Fleming Fjord Group, central
AU - Jesus, Valerian J. P.
AU - Mateus, Octavio
AU - Milan, Jesper
AU - Clemmensen, Lars B.
N1 - info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/6817 - DCRRNI ID/UIDB%2F04035%2F2020/PT#
This study could not have been possible without the team that uncovered this specimen, Farish A Jenkins Jr., William W. Amaral, William R. Downs III, Stephen M. Gatesy, Neil H. Shubin Niels Bonde and Lars B. Clemmensen. We thank Harvard University and Bent Lindow from the Natural History Museum of Denmark. Thanks to Alexandre Guillaume and Vincent Cheng for reviewing and bringing improvements to the original manuscript and Carla Tomás for laboratory support. Alfred Lemierre and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for their comments on the manuscript.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - During the Triassic, Batrachia diverged into ancestors of frogs (Salientia) and salamanders (Caudata). Fossils of Triassic batrachians are rare and found only in a few outcrops, such as the Middle Sakamena Formation of Madagascar (Induan). Only three Triassic taxa have been described, the two early frogs Triadobatrachus and Czatkiobatrachus and the early salamander Triassurus. Here we describe a right ilium, collected in 1991, attributed to the first batrachian from the Late Triassic Carlsberg Fjord Member (Ørsted Dal Formation, Fleming Fjord Group) in the Jameson Land Basin, located in central East Greenland. The fossil specimen only displays the proximal part of a right ilium, missing its shaft. After a thorough comparison with several clades (lizards, temnospondyls, salamanders and frogs), we consider the specimen as a lissamphibian sharing feature with salientians and anurans: squarish acetabular region, deeply concave acetabular surface, laterally projecting acetabular rim, flat mesial surface. It is the youngest Triassic specimen of Batrachia to date and one of the northernmost of the Late Triassic.
AB - During the Triassic, Batrachia diverged into ancestors of frogs (Salientia) and salamanders (Caudata). Fossils of Triassic batrachians are rare and found only in a few outcrops, such as the Middle Sakamena Formation of Madagascar (Induan). Only three Triassic taxa have been described, the two early frogs Triadobatrachus and Czatkiobatrachus and the early salamander Triassurus. Here we describe a right ilium, collected in 1991, attributed to the first batrachian from the Late Triassic Carlsberg Fjord Member (Ørsted Dal Formation, Fleming Fjord Group) in the Jameson Land Basin, located in central East Greenland. The fossil specimen only displays the proximal part of a right ilium, missing its shaft. After a thorough comparison with several clades (lizards, temnospondyls, salamanders and frogs), we consider the specimen as a lissamphibian sharing feature with salientians and anurans: squarish acetabular region, deeply concave acetabular surface, laterally projecting acetabular rim, flat mesial surface. It is the youngest Triassic specimen of Batrachia to date and one of the northernmost of the Late Triassic.
KW - Lissamphibia
KW - frogs
KW - salamanders
KW - ilium
KW - Late Triassic
KW - Fleming Fjord Group
U2 - 10.37570/bgsd-2022-70-08
DO - 10.37570/bgsd-2022-70-08
M3 - Article
SN - 2245-7070
VL - 70
SP - 117
EP - 130
JO - Bulletin of the Geological Society of Denmark
JF - Bulletin of the Geological Society of Denmark
ER -