The oldest Jurassic anurans from continental Africa (Tendaguru Hill, Tanzania)

Anurans are a diverse clade of tetrapods with a rich evolutionary history beginning ~250 Ma. Most time-calibrated molecular phylogenetic analyses place the early diversification of anurans during the Jurassic, with the emergence of several major modern anuran clades linked to the break-up of the Pangea. Neobatrachia—a clade containing ~95% of extant anuran species— likely emerged within Gondwana during the Jurassic, but the oldest fossils so far assigned to this clade are from the latest Early Cretaceous of South America. Here we describe the oldest occurrence of crown-anurans in Africa, with five specimens from the Jurassic Middle Dinosaur Member of the Tendaguru Formation (Tendaguru Hill, Tanzania). The specimens are assigned to at least two taxa, both assigned to crown anurans, rather than salientians. Comparisons with humeri from all major anuran clades revealed an overall similarity for one taxon to neobatrachians. This potential occurrence of Neobatrachia in the Jurassic of Tanzania would be the earliest occurrence of this clade by more than 30 Ma and suggests its early diversification occurred within Gondwana as inferred by biogeographic analyses of extant taxa.