Pelodytidae Fossil Limb Bone Frog Amphibian Tertiary Oligocene Collection (7)

Rare ! Prehistoric Amphibian Fossil Limb Bone mm 4 x 1 Pelodytidae sp. Extinct Pelobatid Anurans Cenozoic Tertiary Oligocene Collecting Paleontology Museum.

From Arikaeean (Late Oligocene) Brooksville 2 site in Florida, in Plexiglas Box, diam. cm 3, only a piece, as in photos.
Frog fossil are rare, but this site hase proven unusually productive for them, with findings such as: tibiofibula, tibulare, ilium, radioulna and humerus. All are part or associated with the appendicular skeleton.

The fossils are found in fissures in the rock and have been interpreted as the inhabitants and prey of the animals that lived near a cave system.
All our material coming from this locality is part of the endemic microfauna, with most of the pieces measuring just a few mm in length. It is therefore necessary a magnification  to correctly visualize these fossils, but they are marvelous examples of an ancient ecosystem of 28 million years ago.

Pelodytidae are smooth-skinned frogs with fossorial habits whose fossil species are more numerous than the existing ones. There are only two existing species belonging to a single genus. Two or three kinds are known from fossils. Distribution is disjoint, with existing species known from Western Europe and the Caucasus mountains.
The common name for Pelodytidae, "parsley frogs", comes from the green color of Pelodytes punctatus skin, which makes it look as if it were garnished with parsley. This small European frog (40 mm long snout) is agile and gracile, with large eyes. It is mainly terrestrial and nocturnal, but during the breeding season it is active during the day, when the males apparently call underwater. Both species of Pelodytidae are fossorial. The reproductive modality is primitive, with long rows of pigmented aquatic eggs deposited in slow water, where they hatch and feed on tadpoles.
Pelodytidae (Pelobatoidea superfamily) have traditionally been considered archaeobatrachians, members of the paraphyletic group of primitive frogs from which neobatrachians evolved. The Pelodytidae include the extinct genus Propelodytes, which casts doubt on the monophily of the Pelodytidae.
Several fossils attributed to the Pelodytidae are known. The extinct genus Miopelodytes, as well as the extinct species Pelodytes arevacus, both have a fused astragalus and calcaneus, as opposed to the extinct genus Propelodytes. The fossils are known from the Eocene through the Pleistocene in Europe and the Miocene in North America.