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Amphibians have for centuries appeared in culture. From the fire-dwelling salamander to the frogs (and occasionally toads ) of myth and fairytale and the rare use of a newt in literature, amphibians play the role of strange and sometimes repulsive creatures.
The largest living amphibian is the 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) [41] but this is a great deal smaller than the largest amphibian that ever existed—the extinct 9 m (30 ft) Prionosuchus, a crocodile-like temnospondyl dating to 270 million years ago from the middle Permian of Brazil. [42]
The list below largely follows Darrel Frost's Amphibian Species of the World (ASW), Version 5.5 (31 January 2011). Another classification, which largely follows Frost, but deviates from it in part is the one of AmphibiaWeb , which is run by the California Academy of Sciences and several of universities.
Amphibians are in decline worldwide, with 2 out of every 5 species threatened by extinction, according to a paper published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.
There is today a general consensus that all modern amphibians, the Lissamphibia, have their origin in labyrinthodont stock, but this is where consensus ends. [22] The fragile bones of the lissamphibians are extremely rare as fossils, and the modern amphibians are highly derived, making comparison with fossil labyrinthodonts difficult.
It belongs to a lineage believed to have given rise to the three living branches of amphibians - frogs, salamanders and limbless caecilians. Creature named for Kermit the Frog offers clues on ...
Folklorist Andrew Lang listed myths about a frog or toad that swallows or blocks the flow of waters occurring in many world mythologies. [1]On the other hand, researcher Anna Engelking drew attention to the fact that studies on Indo-European mythology and its language see "a link between frogs and the underworld, and – by extension – sickness and death".
The list includes all commonly accepted genera, but also genera that are now considered invalid, doubtful (nomina dubia), or were not formally published (nomina nuda), as well as junior synonyms of more established names, and genera that are no longer considered amphibians. Modern forms are excluded from this list.