In Depth
Triadobatrachus is one of the earliest frogs to appear in the fossil record. So primitive is Triadobatrachus that this frog has substantially more vertebrae, fourteen in total when compared to a range of four to nine vertebrae in modern frogs. A short tail was also retained in adulthood. Triadobatrachus has been found in association with marine (salt water) deposits, though the presence of a large number of terrestrial plants were also found near to the Triadobatrachus holotype. These plants indicate that like many modern frogs, Triadobatrachus would leave the water to roam about on land, quite possibly to hunt invertebrates as well as possibly seek out new bodies of water.
There has been a lot of speculation concerning Triadobatrachus and if it were capable of jumping like modern frogs can. Most of this study has focused upon examining the rear legs, and usually the answer is that although the rear legs were developed well enough for swimming and walking, they were incapable of providing a jumping ability that modern frogs are known to have. However a 2012 study by Sigurdsen, Green and Bishop focused more upon the front legs, and found that these were actually quite similar to the fore leg structures of modern frogs. This means Triadobatrachus would have still been capable of landing, and that in actuality may well have been capable of hopping and jumping very short distances, though still not to the same distances that modern frogs can.
Further Reading
- Une forme ancestrale des amphibiens anoures dans le Trias inf�rieur de Madagascar. - Comptes Rendus hebdomadaires des s�ances de l’Acad�mie des Sciences 202: 1607–1608.- J. Piveteau - 1936. - Origine et �volution morphologique des amphibiens anoures. - Comptes Rendus hebdomadaires des s�ances de l’Acad�mie des Sciences 203: 1084–1086. - J. Piveteau - 1936. - Redescription of Triadobatrachus massinoti (Piveteau, 1936) an anuran amphibian from the Early Triassic”. Palaeontographica Abteilung A, Palaeozoologie-Stratigraphie 206: 1–16. - J-C. Rage & Z. Roček - 1989. - Did Triadobatrachus Jump? Morphology and Evolution of the Anuran Forelimb in Relation to Locomotion in Early Salientians - Fieldiana Life and Earth Sciences Number 5 :77-89. - Trond Sigurdsen, David M. Green & Philip J. Bishop - 2012. – Triadobatrachus massinoti, the earliest known lissamphibian (Vertebrata: Tetrapoda) re-examined by �CT-Scan, and the evolution of trunk length in batrachians. – Contributions to Zoology. 58 (2): 201–234. – Eduardo Ascarrunz, Jean-Claude Rage, Pierre Legreneur & Michel Laurin – 2016.
