A stem-group frog from the Early Triassic of Poland

Described on the basis of disarticulated postcranial bones (vertebrae, hume ri, ilia) from karst deposits of Scythian age at the locality of Czatkowice in the Krakow Upland, Poland, Czatkobatrachus polonicus gen. et sp. n. is the first salientian known from the Triassic of the Northern part of Pangea . It may be only slightly younger (about 5 MA) than Triadobatrachus massino ti (Piveteau, 1936) from Madagascar, the only Early Triassic salientian kno wn hitherto. Czatkobatrachus resembles Triadobatrachus but is more derived in some features of the vertebrae and elbow joint. It provides evidence of a global distribution of stem-frogs at the very beginning of the Mesozoic, and suggests that the origin of the group must be sought in the Permian.