Gerobatrachus

Gerobatrachus

• North America (Texas )

• Gerobatrachus hottoni Anderson et al. 2,008

Gerobatrachus is a genus of small extinct terrestrial vertebrates from the group of Temnospondylen that lived around 290 million years ago in Sakmarium of North America (early Permian). The only described in 2008, eleven inches long type is the type species G. hottoni.

The generic name of the fossil is derived from the Greek geros ( = ancient ) and batrachus ( = frog). The Style epithet honors Nicholas Hotton, a dead vertebrate paleontologist at the Natural History Museum.

The anatomical features of Gerobatrachus interpret the first description of a research group at the University of Calgary According to indicate that this animal was close to the common ancestor of frogs and toads and salamanders. Especially the skull, vertebrae and teeth there was a mixture of frog and salamander features ( " mosaic form "). On the basis of anatomical findings, the separation of the lines of development of the two groups is determined in the period from 275 to 240 million years ago. With the help of so-called molecular clock of the last common ancestor had previously been dated to 300 million years ago (late Carboniferous).

The type specimen of G. hottoni was discovered in 1995 by Peter Kroehler, a research assistant of Vertebrate Paleontology at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington DC), in Baylor County, Texas; and must be kept under the archive number USNM 489135 in the Natural History Museum in Washington.