Texas scientists say that a fossilized skull dating back 270 million years was named Kermitops gratus after the beloved Muppet character Kermit the Frog.
There definitely were no muppets during the Permian Period, but there was a Kermit - or at least a forerunner of modern amphibians that has been named after the celebrity frog. Scientists on Thursday described the fossilized skull of a creature called Kermitops gratus that lived in what is now Texas about 270 million years ago. It belongs to a lineage believed to have given rise to the three living branches of amphibians - frogs, salamanders and limbless caecilians.
Amphibians are one of the four groups of living terrestrial vertebrates, along with reptiles, birds and mammals. The unique features of the Kermitops skull - a blend of archaic and more advanced features - are providing insight into amphibian evolution.
Kermitops belonged to a group called temnospondyls that arose a few tens of millions of years after the first land vertebrates evolved from fish ancestors. The biggest temnospondyls superficially resembled crocodiles, including two that each were around 20 feet in length, Prionosuchus and Mastodonsaurus. Temnospondyls are considered the progenitor lineage of modern amphibians, Mann said.
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