Earliest Asian discoglossid frog from western Liaoning

Based on a superbly preserved skeleton, a new anuran taxon has been named a nd described from the Yixian Formation (Upper Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous), L iaoning Province, northeastern China. This discovery documents the first di scoglossid fossil from China, the earliest record of the group in Asia, and the only second Mesozoic discoglossid known from fully articulated materia l in the world. The family Discoglossidae is widely perceived as a primitiv e anuran group, but has no definite fossils found in collaboration with the ir recent distribution in Asia. The new discovery from Liaoning extends the temporal range of the group in Asia back at least 120 million years,. and provides valuable fossil material for study of anatomical details of early discoglossids, as well as of historical distribution of this primitive anur an group.