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posted by martyb on Saturday April 25 2020, @01:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the finding-a-long-lost-great-great-great...-great-grandparent-of-Kermit dept.

Submitted via IRC for Soybull

The first frog fossil from Antarctica has been found:

Scientists have previously found evidence of giant amphibians[*] that walked Antarctica during the Triassic Period, over 200 million years ago, but no traces on the continent of amphibians like those around today (SN: 3/23/15). The shape of the newly discovered bones indicates that this frog belonged to the family of Calyptocephalellidae, or helmeted frogs, found today in South America.

The fossilized frog's modern relatives live exclusively in the warm, humid central Chilean Andes. This suggests that similar climate conditions existed on Antarctica around 40 million years ago, researchers report April 23 in Scientific Reports.

That offers a clue about how fast Antarctica switched from balmy to bitter cold (SN: 4/1/20). Antarctica quickly froze over after splitting from Australia and South America, which were once all part of the supercontinent Gondwana (SN: 10/10/19).

[*] Behind a paywall.

Journal Reference:
T. Mörs, M. Reguero and D. Vasilyan. First fossil frog from Antarctica: implications for Eocene high latitude climate conditions and Gondwanan cosmopolitanism of Australobatrachia. Scientific Reports. Published online April 23, 2020. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-61973-5.

The jokes almost write themselves. Who will be first to leap at the opportunity?


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Saturday April 25 2020, @06:46AM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday April 25 2020, @06:46AM (#986858) Journal

    Most of East Antarctica is still not well known by geologists but it does include the Transantarctic Mountains. These commonly exceed 4000 metres elevation. The shield is very depressed in the centre, where it carries the bulk of the Antarctic ice sheet. Large areas lie deeper than 1000 metres below sea level.

    things might be quite sudden when you're that far down.. [antarctica.gov.au]

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