[Taxacom] [Biogeography Portal] RE: Ratites and frogs of New Zealand

[John Grehan]

I guess my memory is getting too fuzzy with so many biogeographic
patterns to recall. As I went back over the frog question I recalled
that indeed the sister-group relationship between the NZ frog and
Ascaphus of W North America was not supported. However, this does not
end the Pacific affinities of the NZ Frog. Panbiogeographic examinations
of the frog distribution have focused on the distribution of several
basal lineages which are distributed around the Pacific basin and in
Europe - a characteristically Pacific baseline pattern of distribution
(as outlined by Croizat 1958 and later by Craw 1983). It is evident from
the paper Ken cited that there continues to be some flux over the
systematic position of the primitive frogs so I don't doubt there will
be further changes. 

A few years back I mapped on my biogeographic web page the fossil frogs
Notobatrachus (Patagonia) and Prosalirus (Arizona (Jurassic fossil
taxa), along with Ascaphidae (western North America), Bombinatoridae
(Europe-Asia), Discoglossidae (Europe-Asia with the Jurassic taxon
Callobatrachus sanyanensis, in Lianing Province, China), and
Leiopelmatidae. These families were represented as a paraphyletic
assemblage with respect to the remaining frog families according to
classifications presented in Pough et al. (1998) and Qin and Yuan
(2001). Ford and Cannatella (1993) and Roelants and Bossuyt (2005)
present a similar arrangement  while Haas (2003) breaks things up a bit
with the impostion of Pipidae, but retention of Rhinophyrynidae which
was cited in earlier panbiogeographic evaluations (Haas does not appear
to include the Bombinatoridae and Leiopelmatidae unless that was under
something else (both arrangements in the article cited by Ken. 

So I would conclude at this time that a Pacific baseline for the NZ
frogs still stands among at least some phylogenetic reconstructions as
part of an assemblage of the most basal frog lineages. This might imply
that the frog ancestor was distributed over landscapes involving the
Pacific as well as Atlantic and Indian Ocean regions (before they were
the oceans of today), but the primitive lineages differentiated over the
Pacific sector while other parts of the world encompassed the more
derived lineages. Maybe something else is possible, but right now that
seems to be the biogeographic evidence. If Ken wants to believe in
mysterious dispersal based on some imagined history that is ok, but if
his belief system is to come into science it is the analytical
interpretation of empirical evidence that has to be presented rather
than assumed - and so far that is something Ken (and a lot of other
dispersalists) has yet to do in my opinion.

John Grehan


Dr. John R. Grehan

Director of Science and Collections

Buffalo Museum of Science1020 Humboldt Parkway

Buffalo, NY 14211-1193

email: jgrehan at sciencebuff.org

Phone: (716) 896-5200 ext 372

 

Panbiogeography

http://www.sciencebuff.org/biogeography_and_evolutionary_biology.php

Ghost moth research

http://www.sciencebuff.org/systematics_and_evolution_of_hepialdiae.php

Human evolution and the great apes

http://www.sciencebuff.org/human_origin_and_the_great_apes.php

 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Grehan [mailto:jgrehan at sciencebuff.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 3:25 PM
> To: Ken Kinman; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Cc: biogeography at bohm.snv.jussieu.fr
> Subject: [Biogeography Portal] RE: [Taxacom] Ratites and frogs of New
> Zealand
> 
> Ken,
> 
> Thanks for the frog reference. I'll take a look. However, I don't
think
> you are in any position to cast any probabilities on whether the
tuatara
> connection is right or wrong without some evidence. The NZ-W North
> America relationship was made by paleontologists, not by me. The
> reference is listed in the Ghosts of Gondwana review.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ken Kinman [mailto:kinman at hotmail.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 3:19 PM
> > To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> > Cc: biogeography at bohm.snv.jussieu.fr
> > Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Ratites and frogs of New Zealand
> >
> > John,
> >     The most comprehensive (and recent) review is "The Amphibian
tree
> of
> > life" (Frost et al., 2006; Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297:1-370).
The
> > molecular data is congruent with the morphological data put forth
back
> in
> > 1993 (when clade Leiopelmatanura was first proposed).
> >
> >      Although I didn't mention the tuataras in my last post, I think
> you
> > are
> > probably wrong about that as well.  But it would be difficult to
prove
> > given
> > the paucity of the fossil record for Sphenodontidae (especially in
the
> > Cenozoic after the K-T extinction almost wiped them out).  But
> sampling in
> > the Mesozoic is getting better, and just a few years ago they
> discovered
> > many specimens of a new genus Priosphenodon in the Cretaceous of
> > Patagonia.
> >
> >      Whether Sphenodon itself survived the K-T extinction in South
> > America,
> > Antarctica, or Australia, is anybody's guess.  Right now I would bet
> on
> > Australia, so tell all your Australian paleontologist colleagues to
be
> on
> > the lookout for Sphenodon fossils in the early or mid-Cenozoic.  If
I
> am
> > right, they won't ever find any in the early Cenozoic of New
Zealand.
> We
> > shall see.
> >    ---Cheers,
> >           Ken Kinman
> >
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