Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 4 September 1987:
Vol. 237. no. 4819, pp. 1215 - 1216
DOI: 10.1126/science.237.4819.1215
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

An Upper Eocene Frog from the Dominican Republic and Its Implication for Caribbean Biogeography

GEORGE O. POINAR JR. 1 and DAVID C. CANNATELLA 2

1 Department of Entomological Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.
2 Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.

A frog of the leptodactylid genus Eleutherodactylus is reported from Eocene amber found in the Dominican Republic. It is the first described amphibian fossil in amber, and the oldest complete lissamphibian fossil from Mesoamerica (Central America and Mexico). Dating of the amber matrix indicates that by the end of the Eocene a diverse fauna was present in the Antilles, much earlier than has generally been proposed. The presence of this and other amber fossils from this same age suggests that Tertiary patterns of landmass movements were significant in determining the present distribution of species.

Submitted on April 14, 1987
Accepted on July 6, 1987


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Upper Eocene Gilled Mushroom from the Dominican Republic.
G. O. Poinar, G. O. Poinar Jr., and R. Singer (1990)
Science 248, 1099-1101
   Abstract »    PDF »
Biogeography.
R. L. Jones and R.L. Jones (1989)
Progress in Physical Geography 13, 133-146
   PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)