''Pachycentrata'' is an extinct

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

s. ''Pachycentrata'' fossils have been found in the In Beceten Formation located in Tahoua, Niger. A. M. Báez and J.-C. Rage. 1998. Pipid frogs from the Upper Cretaceous of In Beceten, Niger. Palaeontology 41(4):669-691 The fossils have been dated to the late/upper Coniacian to

Santonian The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 86.3 ± 0.7 mya ( million years ago) and 83.6 ± 0.7 m ...

periods. It is estimated to have snout-vent length about . The original phylogenetic analysis suggested that it was more closely related to ''

Pipa The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional Chinese musical instrument belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets rangi ...

'' than to ''

Xenopus ''Xenopus'' () (Gk., ξενος, ''xenos'' = strange, πους, ''pous'' = foot, commonly known as the clawed frog) is a genus of highly aquatic frogs native to sub-Saharan Africa. Twenty species are currently described with ...

'', and a recent phylogenetic supports this conclusion in an unconstrained phylogenetic analysis, but constraining for the topology obtained by molecular studies yields less resolved results that place ''Pachycentrata'' in an unresolved polytomy with extant pipids and several extinct pipimorphs.

References

Late Cretaceous amphibians of Africa Fossil taxa described in 2004 † Coniacian genus first appearances Santonian genus extinctions {{Frog-stub

See also

References