First frog fossils from Australia
Abstract
RECENT speculation about the ancestral frog fauna of Australia, even embracing the Cretaceous1, has been based purely on zoogeographic deductions, for study of the origins and history of this fauna has been seriously handicapped by the complete absence of an endemic fossil record. Although it has been suggested2,3 that the Lower Eocene Indobatrachus of the Intertrappean beds of Bombay represents the Australian leptodactylid subfamily Myobatrachinae, such a relationship is considered dubious or untenable by other authors4,5. It is therefore of interest to report the recent discovery of isolated fragments of frog bones among a rich mid-Miocene vertebrate fauna in Central Australia, so being the first frog fossils found in Australia.
- Publication:
-
Nature
- Pub Date:
- April 1974
- DOI:
- 10.1038/248711b0
- Bibcode:
- 1974Natur.248..711T