[Taxacom] Frog biogeography

[John Grehan]

I did not see any evidence from Ken refuting a leiopelmatid clade
encompassing NZ, W Nam and Argentina (fossil). Some on this list may find
the biogeography of this group in relation to all other frogs of some
interest.


Heads notes that "The family is sister to all other modern frogs...With its
western North American records, Leiopelmatidae cannot be Gondwanan. San
Mauro et al (2005) described the leiopelmatid genera as 'merely relicts',
but this does not explain the overall allopatry between the family,
straddling the central Pacific basin, and all other frogs, which are absent
from the Pacific east of Fiji...The split between the Pacific
Leiopelmatidae and all other frogs dates back to the Paleozoic or early
Mesozoic (San Mauro et al., 2005), before the Jurassic formation of the
Pacific plate and the Pacific basin."


John Grehan