Mesozoic and Palaeocene lissamphibian assemblages of North America: a comprehensive review

Abstract

The Mesozoic and Palaeocene record of lissamphibians (i.e. anurans, caudates, gymnophionans and albanerpetontids) in North America is reviewed on the basis of over 400 published and unpublished occurrences from 61 geological formations. The record is heavily biased towards isolated bones, although some associated and articulated skeletons and rare tracks and trackways are known. Most of the localities are in the Western Interior: in central and southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan, Canada, extending southwards through the USA and into northern Mexico. Outside of that region, records are limited to one Late Cretaceous age formation in Baja California and several Late Triassic and Cretaceous age formations in the eastern USA. Putative lissamphibians have been reported from the Late Triassic (middle Carnian and early Norian). Unambiguous lissamphibians are known from the Early Jurassic (Sinemurian–Pliensbachian), the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian–earliest Tithonian), the basal Cretaceous (late Berriasian–Valanginian) and a nearly continuous sequence extending from the Aptian through to the terminal Palaeocene. The Early Jurassic (Sinemurian–Pliensbachian) of Arizona documents the oldest global occurrences of an anuran (i.e. crown frog) and a stem caecilian; the latter also is the only North American fossil occurrence for Gymnophiona prior to the Quaternary. Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian–earliest Tithonian) age deposits in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming contain a moderate diversity of anurans, urodeles (i.e. crown salamanders) and possibly stem salamanders. A basal Cretaceous locality (late Berriasian–Valanginian) in South Dakota contains a urodele and the first North American occurrence for Albanerpetontidae. Aptian/Albian age localities in Montana, Wyoming, Texas and Oklahoma contain a mixture of anurans, urodeles and albanerpetontids—that tripartite lissamphibian composition persists in North America through the remainder of the Cretaceous and intermittently through the Palaeocene. Most of the anurans are of uncertain familial affinities. The urodeles contain a mixture of extinct families (Scapherpetontidae and Batrachosauroididae) that were prominent through the Cretaceous into the early Palaeogene, along with the earliest appearances of several extant families, specifically sirenids in the Santonian, amphiumids and proteids in the late Maastrichtian and dicamptodontids and unequivocal cryptobranchids in the late Palaeocene. The albanerpetontid genus Albanerpeton was moderately diverse during the Cretaceous and Palaeocene, before vanishing from the North American record near the end of the Palaeocene. Temporal richness estimates of North American lissamphibians were calculated based on taxic and minimum lineage level occurrence data per 5 million year time interval beginning in the Early Jurassic and though to the end of the Palaeocene. The resulting richness curves demonstrate a general pattern of increasing richness leading up to the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) boundary, with peak values during the Campanian and Maastrichtian and a decline thereafter. The latter part of that pattern suggests higher extinction rates for lissamphibians across the K-Pg boundary compared to previous estimates, which we attribute to our coarser temporal binning, taxonomic additions and changes to some earlier taxonomic identifications. Although the overall richness pattern may at least partially reflect a true signal, it is heavily influenced by factors such as taphonomy, temporal gaps, fossil sampling and publication biases towards particular intervals and taxonomic groups; more detailed studies of all major lissamphibian clades are needed to corroborate these findings. This review highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the Mesozoic and Palaeocene portion of the North American lissamphibian record and provides a framework for future work.