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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]
Many temnospondyls are much larger than living amphibians, and superficially resemble crocodiles, which has led many taxa to be named with the suffix -suchus.The largest taxa, which were predominantly the Mesozoic stereospondyls, had skulls exceeding one meter in length, and the entire animal would have been several meters in length (for reference, the largest living amphibian, Andrias, is ...
The event is well-documented [1] and important [2] [3] academically as a demonstration of transitional forms and exaptation, the re-purposing of existing structures during evolution. [ 4 ] The ossicles evolved from skull bones present in most tetrapods , including amphibians , sauropsids (which include extant reptiles and birds ) and early ...
While most labyrinthodonts remained aquatic or semi-aquatic, some of the reptile-like amphibians adapted to explore the terrestrial ecological niches as small or medium-sized predators. They evolved increasingly terrestrial adaptions during the Carboniferous, including stronger vertebrae and slender limbs, and a deeper skull with laterally ...
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.
[17] [18] Unlike other modern amphibians (frogs and salamanders) the skull is compact and solid, with few large openings between plate-like cranial bones. The snout is pointed and bullet-shaped, used to force their way through soil or mud. In most species the mouth is recessed under the head, so that the snout overhangs the mouth. [10]
The eyes of most frogs are located on either side of the head near the top and project outwards as hemispherical bulges. They provide binocular vision over a field of 100° to the front and a total visual field of almost 360°. [83] They may be the only part of an otherwise submerged frog to protrude from the water.
Most scientists have concluded that all of the primary groups of modern amphibians—frogs, salamanders and caecilians—are closely related. Some writers have argued that the early Permian dissorophoid Gerobatrachus hottoni is a lissamphibian. [ 2 ]