Australobatrachia ("southern frogs") is a clade of frogs in the suborder Neobatrachia. It comprises three families of frogs with a Gondwanan distribution, being known from Chile, Australia, and New Guinea. Together, they form the sister group to the superfamily Hyloidea.[1][2]

Australobatrachia
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous–present
Calyptocephalella gayi above, Mixophyes fasciolatus below
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Suborder: Neobatrachia
Clade: Australobatrachia
Frost et al., 2006
Families

Taxonomy

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The common ancestor of all three families inhabited South America during the Early Cretaceous (about 125 million years ago). By about 100 million years ago, the ancestors of the Calyptocephalellidae diverged from the Myobatrachoidea, as the ancestral Myobatrachoidea moved south, colonizing the Australian continent via then-unglaciated Antarctica. The two families within Myobatrachoidea diverged from each other later in the Cretaceous or during the earliest Paleocene.[1][3]

Australobatrachia contains the following subgroups:[1][4]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Feng, Yan-Jie; Blackburn, David C.; Liang, Dan; Hillis, David M.; Wake, David B.; Cannatella, David C.; Zhang, Peng (2017-07-18). "Phylogenomics reveals rapid, simultaneous diversification of three major clades of Gondwanan frogs at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (29): E5864–E5870. doi:10.1073/pnas.1704632114. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5530686. PMID 28673970.
  2. ^ "Australobatrachia". www.mv.helsinki.fi. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
  3. ^ "Fossilworks: Australobatrachia". Paleobiology Database. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
  4. ^ Otero, Rodrigo A.; Jimenez-Huidobro, Paulina; Soto-Acuña, Sergio; Yury-Yáñez, Roberto E. (2014-11-01). "Evidence of a giant helmeted frog (Australobatrachia, Calyptocephalellidae) from Eocene levels of the Magallanes Basin, southernmost Chile". Journal of South American Earth Sciences. 55: 133–140. doi:10.1016/j.jsames.2014.06.010. ISSN 0895-9811.