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The Fossil Record of Amphibians (Amphibia: Urodela and Anura) in Greece

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Fossil Vertebrates of Greece Vol. 1

Abstract

The oldest fossil amphibians from Greece are early Miocene in age, and therefore, only the last few millions of years of amphibian evolution are recorded in this country, and all but one (Mioproteus) of the identified taxa are referable to extant genera. No extinct species of amphibians have been described so far on the basis of Greek fossils. However, the fossil record indicates that some genera that are now absent in Greece were present in the past: the urodelans Ommatotriton and Salamandrina, and the anuran Latonia (also Discoglossus if its identification will be confirmed). However, only two of the five urodelan genera and six of the seven anuran extant genera have been detected so far in the fossil record, indicating that we still have a partial knowledge of the past amphibian diversity of Greece. The late Miocene/early Pliocene locality of Maramena provided the most informative and diverse amphibian assemblage of Greece with five urodelans and three anurans, some of which (Ommatotriton, Salamandra, Salamandrina and an indeterminate cryptobranchid) have not so far been identified in any other Greek palaeontological localities. The indeterminate cryptobranchid from Maramena represents by far the largest amphibian of Greece and demonstrates that giant salamanders were also present in the Balkans during the Neogene. The amphibian fossil record in Greece so far pertains to at least eight different families and originates from more than 40 localities across the whole country.

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Acknowledgments

MD thanks C Doukas and the Department of Historical Geology and Paleontology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens for having hosted him for a research stay in 2003–2004 (Italian CNR grant no. 203.22-26.02.02) that later on, with the precious collaboration of many students and colleagues, gave origin to a series of papers that contributed to the knowledge of the evolutionary history of the Greek herpetofaunas. GLG acknowledges support from Forschungskredit of the University of Zurich, grant no. [FK-20-110]. Elena Syromyatnikova and Andrea Villa critically commented and improved this chapter.

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  1. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Torino, Torino, Italy

    Massimo Delfino & Georgios L. Georgalis

  2. Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Massimo Delfino

  3. Palaeontological Institute and Museum, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Georgios L. Georgalis

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  1. Museo Paleontólogico Egidio Feruglio, CONICET, Trelew, Argentina

    Evangelos Vlachos

Appendix

Appendix

List of the Greek localities containing amphibian fossils: urodelans in Table S1 and anurans in Table S2. Locality numbers refer to the collection numbers of the PaleoBiology Database (PBDB).

Table S1 List of the Greek localities containing urodelan fossils
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Table S2 List of the Greek localities containing anuran fossils
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Delfino, M., Georgalis, G.L. (2022). The Fossil Record of Amphibians (Amphibia: Urodela and Anura) in Greece. In: Vlachos, E. (eds) Fossil Vertebrates of Greece Vol. 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68398-6_6

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