First fossil evidence for a new frog from the Early Cretaceous of the Jiuquan Basin, Gansu Province, north-western China

Abstract

Based on a well-preserved incomplete skeleton, a new frog, Gansubatrachus qilianensis gen. et sp. nov., is described from the Lower Cretaceous Zhonggou Formation of Jiuquan Basin, Gansu Province, north-western China. This species differs from other frogs in a unique combination of characteristics, such as a robust and non-bifurcated alary process on the premaxilla, a ‘V’-shaped parahyoid, a paired sphenethmoid, eight presacral vertebrae, three pairs of free ribs, and unexpanded sacral diapophyses. Phylogenetic analysis based on parsimony suggests that Gansubatrachus is a basal Lalagobatrachia. This discovery of a new frog fossil from the Early Cretaceous of north-west China expands the diversity of fossil frogs in East Asia and provides new material for further studies on the distribution and evolutionary history of Cretaceous Asian anurans.

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:A80B417A-F9C6-4704-B473-FBBA6CDC8C2B

Keywords:

• Anura
• Early Cretaceous
• Zhonggou Formation
• north-western China, Gansubatrachus

Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Jim Gardner (Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology Drumheller, Alberta, Canada) and Prof. Raúl Orencio Gómez (CONICET-Universidad de Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, Argentina) for their insightful suggestions and detailed reviews of this research. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their help. We thank Dr Huijuan Mai (Yunnan University, China) for her help in with micro-CT. This work is supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (No. 2019QZKK0704), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42072014, 42072031 and 42272029), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. lzujbky-2022-ey18) and the Strategic Priority Research Program (B) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDB18000000).

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2023.2183146.

Associate Editor: Jennifer Olori