A scenario for the evolution of the temnospondyl biotas in western Gondwana.

ORDOÑEZ, MARIA DE LOS ANGELES; CLAUDIA ALICIA MARSICANO

Contribuciones del MACN

Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia

Lugar: Capital Federal ; Año: 2016 vol. 6

Temnospondyl amphibians were the most taxonomically rich and diverse group of early tetrapods during the late Paleozoic and Triassic in the freshwater environments across Pangea; nearly 300 species are currently recognized. They first appear in the Mississippian of Laurasia and their last representatives are known from the Early Cretaceous of Australia. Paleozoic Laurasian faunas are well known and clearly show the early history of the group in the paleoecuatorial regions of the Northen Hemisphere. Nevertheless, the paucity of fossil evidence from Carboniferous-early Permian levels in Gondwana blurs any better understanding about how and when temnospondyls established in the Southern Hemisphere. However, very recently finds in north-eastern Brazil of a new early Permian tetrapod fauna implies a deep history of temnospondyls in the Southern Hemisphere, most probably in coincidence with a climatic shift linked to the withdrawal of Western Gondwanan glaciations by the end of the Carboniferous.