Amphibians (class Amphibia), such as frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and gymnophiona, are cold-blooded animals that metamorphose from a juvenile, water-breathing form to an adult, air-breathing form. Typically, amphibians have four limbs. Unlike other land animals (amniotes), amphibians lay eggs in water, as their fish ancestors did. Amphibians are superficially similar to reptiles.
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Amphibians (class Amphibia), such as frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and gymnophiona, are cold-blooded animals that metamorphose from a juvenile, water-breathing form to an adult, air-breathing form. Typically, amphibians have four limbs. Unlike other land animals (amniotes), amphibians lay eggs in water, as their fish ancestors did. Amphibians are superficially similar to reptiles.
In recent decades, there has been a dramatic decline in amphibian populations around the globe and many species are now threatened or extinct. Scientists do not agree on the cause.
Amphibians evolved in the Devonian period. They were a top predator in the Carboniferous Period, but proto-crocodiles evolved and took over that niche.
Taxonomy
Traditionally, amphibians have included all tetrapods that are not amniotes . They are divided into three subclasses, of which two are only known as extinct subclasses:
- Subclass Labyrinthodontia (diverse Paleozoic and early Mesozoic group)
- Subclass Lepospondyli (small Paleozoic group)
- Subclass Lissamphibia (frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, etc.)
Of these only the last subclass includes recent species.
With the phylogenetic revolution, this classification has been modified, or changed, and the Labyrinthodontia discarded as being a paraphyletic group without unique defining features apart from shared primitive characteristics. Classification varies according to the preferred phylogeny of the author, and whether they use a stem-based or node-based classification. Generally amphibians are defined as the group that includes the common ancestors of all living amphibians (frogs, salamanders, etc) and all their descendants. This may also include extinct groups like the temnospondyls (traditionally placed in the disbanded subclass "labyrinthodontia"), and the Lepospondyls. This means that there are a now large number of basal Devonian and Carboniferous tetrapod groups, described as "amphibians" in earlier books, that are no longer placed in the formal Amphibia.
All recent amphibians are included in the subclass Lissamphibia, superorder Salientia, which is usually considered a clade (which means that it is thought that they evolved from a common ancestor apart from other extinct groups), although it has also been suggested also that salamanders arose separately from a temnospondyl-like ancestor (Carroll, 2007).
Authorities also disagree on whether Salientia is a Superorder that includes the order Anura, or whether Anura is a sub-order of the order Salientia. Practical considerations seem to favour using the former arrangement now.
The Lissamphibia, superorder Salientia, are traditionally divided into three orders, but an extinct salamander-like family, the Albanerpetontidae, is now considered part of the Lissamphibia, besides the superorder Salientia. Furthermore, Salientia includes all three recent orders plus a single Triassic proto-frog, Triadobatrachus.
