Salamandroidea

The Salamandroidea are a suborder of salamanders, referred to as advanced salamanders. The members of the suborder are found worldwide except for Antarctica, sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania. They differ from suborder Cryptobranchoidea as the angular and prearticular bones in their lower jaws are fused, their trunk ribs are bicapitate, and all members use internal fertilization.^[2] The female is fertilized by means of a spermatophore, a sperm-containing cap placed by the male in her cloaca. The sperm is stored in spermathecae on the roof of the cloaca until it is needed at the time of oviposition.^[3]

Salamandroidea Temporal range: Late Jurassic - Present,[1] 157–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Alpine salamander (Salamandra atra)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Amphibia
Order:	Urodela
Suborder:	Salamandroidea Fitzinger, 1826
Families
†Beiyanerpeton †Qinglongtrition Ambystomatidae Amphiumidae †Batrachosauroididae? Plethodontidae Proteidae Rhyacotritonidae Salamandridae Sirenidae

The earliest known salamandroid fossils remain contested. Some studies suggest that the earliest salamandroids are represented by specimens of the species Beiyanerpeton jianpingensis and Qinglongtriton gangouensis from the Tiaojishan Formation of Inner Mongolia, China, dated to the Late Jurassic about 157 million years ago.^[4][5] Alternative analyses suggest that Beiyanerpeton jianpingensis and Qinglongtriton gangouensis are stem salamanders and that the oldest known certain salamandroid is Valdotriton gracilis from the Early Cretaceous of Spain,^[6] about 127 Ma.

References

1. Anderson, J. S. (2012). "Fossils, molecules, divergence times, and the origin of Salamandroidea". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (15): 5557–5558. Bibcode:2012PNAS..109.5557A. doi:10.1073/pnas.1202491109. PMC 3326514. PMID 22460794.
2. Miller, Jessica J. "Caudate Families (Newts & Salamanders)". Livingunderworld.org. Archived from the original on 2007-10-16. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
3. Sever, David M.; Stanley E. Trauth (April 1990). "Cloacal Anatomy of Female Salamanders of the Plethodontid Subfamily Desmognathinae (Amphibia: Urodela)". Transactions of the American Microscopical Society. 109 (2): 193–204. doi:10.2307/3226814. JSTOR 3226814.
4. Gao, K.-Q.; Shubin, N.H. (2012). "Late Jurassic salamandroid from western Liaoning, China". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (15): 5767–72. Bibcode:2012PNAS..109.5767G. doi:10.1073/pnas.1009828109. PMC 3326464. PMID 22411790.
5. Jia, Jia; Gao, Ke-Qin (2016-05-04). "A New Basal Salamandroid (Amphibia, Urodela) from the Late Jurassic of Qinglong, Hebei Province, China". PLOS ONE. 11 (5): e0153834. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1153834J. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153834. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 4856324. PMID 27144770.
6. Jones, Marc E. H.; Benson, Roger B. J.; Skutschas, Pavel; Hill, Lucy; Panciroli, Elsa; Schmitt, Armin D.; Walsh, Stig A.; Evans, Susan E. (2022-07-11). "Middle Jurassic fossils document an early stage in salamander evolution" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119 (30): e2114100119. doi:10.1073/pnas.2114100119. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 9335269. PMID 35858401.