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American Zoologist 1965 5(2):319-334; doi:10.1093/icb/5.2.319
© 1965 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
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FOSSIL SALAMANDERS AND SALAMANDER ORIGINS

RICHARD ESTES
Dept. of Biology, Boston University Boston, Massachusetts

Recent (mostly unpublished) work indicates that the present classification of salamanders needs modification. The fossil record of salamanders has been markedly improved recently, and tends to support these conclusions, but does not offer any clues to the origin of salamanders or of the Lissamphibia as a whole. The structure of the sirenid salamanders, both recent and fossil, does not support the establishment of a separate Order Trachystomata for this group.

Re-evaluation of the Paleozoic amphibians suggests that the primitive temnospondyl labyrinthodonts (especially the Dissorophidae) show the greatest number of resemblances to lissamphibians, and at this state of knowledge are the most probable group of origin. Nevertheless, at the present time, the ancestral group cannot be indicated with any high degree of confidence.


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