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Comment
. 2012 Apr 10;109(15):5557-8.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1202491109. Epub 2012 Mar 28.

Fossils, molecules, divergence times, and the origin of Salamandroidea

Affiliations
Comment

Fossils, molecules, divergence times, and the origin of Salamandroidea

Jason S Anderson. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Stratigraphic column from the mid-Mesozoic to recent, showing the impact of the new fossil salamander published in PNAS (12). The blue bar represents the estimate of salamandroid divergence from Yang and Rannala (1), and the red bar represents that from Zhang et al. (6). “A” is the stratigraphic placement of the stem salamander Kokartus; “B1” the age of Chunerpeton used in Reisz and Müller (3) and Roelants (9); “B2” the age of Chunerpeton used by Zhang et al. (6); “C” the new fossil salamandroid; and “D” the previously oldest known salamandroid Valdotriton. The new salamandroid extends their known range by 40 Myr (dashed red line), placing it older than an estimate made from the fossil record (6). The impact of changing hypotheses of taxonomic or stratigraphic placement is also demonstrated; the different age interpretations for Chunerpeton has a 17-Myr impact on the divergence estimate as read from the fossil record (dashed line).

Comment on

References

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