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:
| |
---|---|
Calyptocephalella gayi above, Mixophyes fasciolatus below | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Amphibia |
Order: | Anura |
Suborder: | Neobatrachia |
Clade: | Australobatrachia Frost et al., 2006 |
Families | |
Taxonomy
editThe 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]
- Calyptocephalellidae Reig, 1960 - Chilean toads (5 species)
- Myobatrachoidea
- Limnodynastidae Lynch, 1969 - Australian ground frogs (44 species)
- Myobatrachidae Schlegel, 1850 - Australian froglets and Australian toadlets (91 species)
References
edit- ^ 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.
- ^ "Australobatrachia". www.mv.helsinki.fi. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
- ^ "Fossilworks: Australobatrachia". Paleobiology Database. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
- ^ 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.