New fossil species of the extant genusLepidobatrachus(Anura, Ceratophryidae) from the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene of central Argentina

Abstract

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What happened in the South American Gran Chaco? Diversification of the endemic frog genus Lepidobatrachus Budgett, 1899 (Anura: Ceratophryidae)

“…Chaco wooded areas were also recovered at Farola Monte Hermoso (Tonni, 1974;Tomassini et al, 2011;Nicoli, 2015), supporting the idea that at least until the Pliocene, the climatic conditions on Farola Monte Hermoso were similar to those of the current Chaco (Tonni, 1974;Pascual, 1984;Pascual et al, 1996). Nicoli (2015) questioned some of the paleoecological inferences of these authors, especially those based on the presence of fossils of widely distributed species (extant or extinct), which occur in other regions besides the Chaco. However, the presence of fossils of species that currently are not restricted to the Gran Chaco is not ultimate evidence that Farola Monte Hermoso was not similar to the current Chaco.…”

“…6). A fossil of a recently described species of Lepidobatrachus (Nicoli, 2015) was found at Farola Monte Hermoso, province of Buenos Aires (Tomassini et al, 2011). This locality corresponds to Rio de la Plata Craton.…”

“…On the other hand, in the last few years fossil data for Ceratophryidae significantly increased, with several new fossil records for the genus Ceratophrys and one for the genus Lepidobatrachus (Fernicola, 2001; Tomassini et al, 2011; Nicoli, 2014; Nicoli et al, 2017). The only record of Lepidobatrachus corresponds to the fossil species Lepidobatrachus australis (Nicoli, 2015), which is from the late Miocene-early Pliocene from Farola Monte Hermoso, Buenos Aires, Argentina (Tomassini et al, 2011(Tomassini et al, , 2013Fernicola, 2001;Nicoli, 2015), dated between 5 and 6.8 Ma (Cione et al, 2007). In * Beast analysis we used a log-normal distribution with M = 1.0, S = 1.25, offset = 5 based on the minimum possible age of the L. australis fossil in order to constrain the minimum bound for the node of the clade that includes all species of the genus Lepidobatrachus.…”

Developmental changes and novelties in ceratophryid frogs

“…Specimen assigned to Wawelia geroldhi , from Miocene sediments of northern Patagonia in Argentina [ 16 ], seems to represent a juvenile anuran with some features like extant ceratophryids. Other late Miocene specimens have been attributed to Ceratophrys [ 17 – 20 ] and Lepidobatrachus [ 21 , 22 ]. Those specimens, plus independent molecular data [ 5 , 23 ], indicated that both genera were well differentiated by the Miocene.…”

A new old Budgett frog: an articulated skeleton of an Early Pliocene Lepidobatrachus (Anura, Ceratophryidae) from western Argentina

“…The fossil record of Ceratophryidae dates back to the Late Miocene and it is quite rich compared with the scarce fossil record of most other neotropical anuran groups (Barcelos & dos Santos, 2022;Gómez et al, 2013;Pérez-Ben et al, 2019a, b;Turazzini et al, 2016). Despite the broad South American distribution of extant forms, fossils are largely concentrated in the Argentinean Pampas and consist mostly of variably complete cranial remains and comparatively few, mainly isolated, postcranial bones of Ceratophrys (Agnolin, 2005;Barcelos et al, 2020;Fernicola, 2001;Gómez & Turazzini, 2021;Marshall & Patterson, 1981;Nicoli, 2016Nicoli, , 2017Nicoli, , 2019Peri, 1993;Stoessel et al, 2008), whereas no fossils are known for Chacophrys, and only three specimens, including the one described herein, have been identified as Lepidobatrachus so far (Gómez & Turazzini, 2021;Nicoli, 2015;Tomassini et al, 2011;Turazzini, 2015).…”