Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Why not salafroger?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080521/sc_nm/fossil_frog_dc

"The discovery of a "frogamander," a 290 million-year-old fossil that links modern frogs and salamanders, may resolve a longstanding debate about amphibian ancestry, Canadian scientists said on Wednesday."

>>Why not salafroger?
>>
>>http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080521/sc_nm/fossil_frog_dc
>>
>>"The discovery of a "frogamander," a 290 million-year-old fossil that links modern frogs and salamanders, may resolve a longstanding debate about amphibian ancestry, Canadian scientists said on Wednesday."

The scientist who described this fossil as intermediate between frog and salamander is Jason Anderson. IIRC, I debated him a few times on Usenet newsgroup sci.bio.paleontology a few years ago. He used to be a grad student studying under paleontologist and herpetologist Robert L. Carroll. Anderson's interpretation may not be correct, and there will also likely be skeptics who disagree with this interpretation. In fact, some molecular data show salamanders to be close relatives of caecilians, with frogs a more distant relative. Anyhow, the "frogamander" fossil is older than the oldest known frog fossil, so it is at least consistent with the fossil record.

http://evo.bio.psu.edu/hedgeslab/Publications/PDF-files/101.pdf

Very interesting discovery, guess they will have to update the biology books again, I guess they have done that a few times since I went thru school anyway,lol. Thanks for sharing
Jeff
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Jeff Benfer
You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.2 Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus

Forgot to mention that this is yet another piece of evidence that makes it hard to ignore or dispute the theory of evolution, yet just the other day a guy that I work with, debated with me for an hour about the possibility of "intelligent design". We had to agree to dissagree.
Jeff
-----
Jeff Benfer
You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.2 Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus