Evolution Of A FROG

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GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDFATHERS

Approximately 360 million years ago, amphibians left the sea and were successful on the land because of the lack of other vertebrates to hunt them.

While frogs did make many of these adaptations, theyWere not entirely successful.

The oldest fossil "proto-frog" appeared in the early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their origins may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago.

Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is found in tropical rainforests. There are approximately 4,800 recorded species

Triadobatrachus is an extinct genus of frog-like amphibian. It is the oldest frog known to science. Triadobatrachus was

10 centimeters (3.9 in) long, and still retained many primitive characteristics, such as possessing

fourteen vertebrae, where modern frogs have only four to nine. Six of these vertebrae formed a short tail, which the

animal retained as an adult.

It probably swam by kicking its hind legs, although it could not jump, as most modern frogs can. Its skull resembled that of modern frogs, It lived during the Early Triassic about 250 million years ago, in what is now Madagascar.

BEWARE!!! BEWARE!!! BEWARE!!!

Ironically--considering that they evolved over 300 million years ago and have survived, with various waxings and wanings, into modern times--

amphibians are among the most threatened creatures on the earth today. Over the last few decades, a startling number of frog, toad and

salamander species spiraled toward extinction, though no one knows exactly why: the culprits may include pollution, global warming,

deforestation, disease, or a combination of these and other factors. If current trends persist, amphibians may be the first major classification of

vertebrates to disappear off the face of the earth!