A unique dentary suggests a third genus of batrachosauroidid salamander existed during the latest Cretaceous in the western USA
Author
Gardner, James D.
text
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
2022
2022-03-30
67
1
35
50
http://dx.doi.org/10.4202/app.00926.2021
journal article
10.4202/app.00926.2021
1732-2421
10981042
Family
Batrachosauroididae
Auffenberg, 1958
Remarks
.—
Batrachosauroididae
are an extinct family of neotenic salamanders reliably known by isolated bones and rare skeletons from the Aptian/Albian–late Miocene of North America, the Campanian–late Miocene of Europe, and, potentially, back into the Bathonian–Berriasian of Europe (e.g.,
Auffenberg 1958
;
Estes 1969a
,
1981
;
Naylor 1981
: table 1;
Duffaud 1995
;
Milner 2000
;
Evans and McGowan 2002
;
Holman 2006
;
Oreska et al. 2013
;
Vasilyan and Yanenko 2020
). The family contains six named genera (e.g.,
Estes 1981
;
Naylor 1981
;
Denton and O’Neill 1998
;
Milner 2000
;
Vasilyan and Yanenko 2020
):
Batrachosauroides
Taylor and Hesse, 1943
(two species: early Eocene–middle Miocene, southern and western
USA
);
Opisthotriton
Auffenberg, 1961
(one species: middle/late Santonian–late Paleocene) and
Prodesmodon
Estes, 1964
(one species: middle/late Campanian–early Paleocene), both in the North America Western Interior;
Peratosauroides
Naylor
in
Estes, 1981
(one species: late Miocene,
California
,
USA
);
Parrisia
Denton and O’Neill, 1998
(one species: Campanian,
New Jersey
,
USA
); and
Palaeoproteus
Herre, 1935
(three species: late Paleocene–early Miocene,
Austria
,
France
,
Germany
, and
Ukraine
).