140 BATRACHIA. 



ORDER 4. ECAUDATA (OR ANURA). 



Palaeontology affords as little information concerning the 

 evolution of the frogs and toads, or tail-less Batrachians, as 

 concerning that of the newts and salamanders. Phosphatized 

 mummies both of frogs and toads, apparently indistinguishable 

 from the modern genera Rana and Bufo, occur with their bones 

 in the Upper Eocene (or Lower Oligocene) Phosphorites of 

 S.-W. France. Even if these happen to have been accidentally 

 introduced into the deposit from the surface, there are many 

 undoubted typical skeletons of Ecaudata in European deposits 

 of very little later date. One extinct family, that of the Palaeo- 

 batrachidae, occurs in the Lower Miocene lignite of Rott, near 

 Bonn, Germany, and in apparently contemporaneous deposits 

 both in Bohemia and France. These are toads related to the 

 Pelobatidae, of very ordinary size, with teeth in the upper 

 jaw, procoelous vertebrae, no separate dorsal ribs, the sacral 

 transverse processes much expanded distally, and the urostyle 

 articulating with the sacrum by two condyles. The typical 

 genus is Palceobatrachus, represented in the lignites both by 

 complete adult skeletons and by impressions of the tadpoles. 

 Complete skeletons of Discoglossus have also been found in 

 the same formation (D. troscheli). 



