Origin and Evolution of
Amphibia
The first major groups of amphibians developed in
the Devonian period from lobe-finned fish similar to the modern coelacanth and lungfish,
which had evolved multi-jointed leg-like fins with digits that enabled them to
crawl along the sea bottom. Some fish had developed primitive lungs to help
them breathe air when the stagnant pools of the Devonian swamps were lacking in
oxygen. They could also use their strong fins to hoist themselves out of the
water and onto dry land if circumstances required it. Eventually, their bony
fins would evolve into limbs and they would become the ancestors to all tetrapods,
including amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Despite being able to crawl
on land, many of these prehistoric tetrapodomorph fish still spent most of
their time in the water. Ichthyostega was one of these tetrapods and had
four sturdy limbs, a neck, a tail with fins and a skull very similar to the
lobe-finned fish, Eusthenopteron. Amphibians evolved adaptations which
allowed them to stay out of the water for longer periods. However, they never
developed the amniotic egg which prevented the developing embryo from drying
out and which allowed early reptiles to move on to the land to reproduce. They
still need to return to water or find a damp place to lay their shell-less eggs
and most have a fully aquatic larval stage.
There are large gaps in the fossil record but the
discovery of a batrachian from the Early Permian in Texas in 2008 provided a
missing link with a lot of the characteristics of modern frogs. Molecular
analysis suggests that the frog–salamander divergence took place considerably
earlier than the palaeontological evidence indicates. However the date of the
divergence of the caecilians deduced by molecular phylogenetics agrees with the
fossil record.
The first true amphibians appeared in the Carboniferous
Period, by which time they were already moving up the food chain and occupying
the ecological position currently claimed by such animals as crocodiles.
Amphibians were once the top land predators, sometimes reaching several meters
in length, preying on the large insects on land and many types of fish in the
water. During the Triassic Period, the better-adapted reptiles began to compete
with amphibians, leading to the reduction of their size and importance in the biosphere.
Lissamphibia, which includes all modern amphibians and is the only surviving
lineage of amphibians left, could have branched off from the extinct groups Temnospondyli
and/or Lepospondyli at some time between the Late Carboniferous and the Early Triassic
according to the fossil record. The relative scarcity of fossil evidence does
not permit an exact date, and the most recent molecular clock study based on
multi-locus data suggest a Late Carboniferous–Early Permian origin of extant
amphibians.
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