A microvertebrate assemblage from the Early Triassic of Poland

The Early Triassic microvertebrate assemblage from karst deposits of Czatko wice quarry, Krakow Upland, Poland, has been dated as of latest Olenekian a ge at youngest. The assemblage contains mainly small reptiles: three to fou r possible genera of procolophonids, a small predatory archosaur of protero suchid or pre-proterosuchid grade, a prolacertiform, and one or two genera attributable to Lepidosauromorpha, one of them, very small, being a possibl e stem-lepidosaurian. Furthermore there are some less numerous amphibians, including the first European salientian (stem-frog) - Czatkobatrachus polon icus Evans & Borsuk-Bialynicka, 1998, as well as fishes. The bones are disa rticulated but fairly well preserved. The assemblage provides a glimpse of the Early Triassic diversity of small taxa, otherwise poorly known, and has a considerable potential in highlighting the earliest phylogeny of such gr oups as lepidosauromorphs and salientians which are virtually unknown from other roughly contemporaneous horizons. The Czatkowice microvertebrate comm unity appears to have lived under the mesic conditions of a freshwater oasi s within the otherwise arid circumequatorial belt of Scythian Northern Pang ea.