A new crown-group frog (Amphibia, Anura) from the early Cretaceous of northeastern Inner Mongolia, China. (American Museum novitates, no. 3876)
Supplemental Materials
Date
item.page.datecreated
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
DOI
DOI
Abstract
Based on 12 well-preserved skeletons of postmetamorphic individuals, a new crown-group frog taxon is named and described from the Lower Cretaceous Guanghua (upper part of Longjiang) Formation (stratigraphic equivalent of the world-famed Yixian Formation) exposed in Dayangshu Basin, Hulunbuir, in the far northeast of Inner Mongolia, China. The new taxon, Genibatrachus baoshanensis, documents another early Cretaceous anuran having reduction of the presacral vertebrae to eight in number, similar to several frog taxa of roughly the same age from Spain and Brazil. The new frog also displays several features that are ontogenetically and phylogenetically informative, including ontogenetic fusion of the palatine to the sphenethmoid, and ontogenetic fusion of ribs to the diapophyses of the posterior trunk vertebrae. In addition, the new discovery extends the geographic range of early Cretaceous frogs of the Jehol Biota northward to near the 50th parallel north in East Asia.