Chunerpeton

Chunerpeton tianyiensis
Temporal range: Middle or Late Jurassic, 164 Ma
↓
Fossil specimen of C. tianyiensis, Beijing Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Clade: Caudata
Order: Urodela
Suborder: Cryptobranchoidea
Genus: †Chunerpeton
Gao & Shubin, 2003
Species:
†C. tianyiensis
Binomial name
†Chunerpeton tianyiensis
Gao & Shubin, 2003

Chunerpeton tianyiensis is an extinct species of salamander from the Late Jurassic Daohugou Beds in Ningcheng County, Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia), China. It is the only species classified under the genus Chunerpeton, which means "early creeping animal".[1] It was a small animal measuring 18 cm in length.[2] It was neotenic, with the retention of external gills into adulthood. In the original description it was placed in Cryptobranchidae, which contains modern giant salamanders.[1] A redescription published in 2020 found it to be a stem-group caudatan outside the crown group of modern salamanders.[3] A 2021 study found it to be a member of Cryptobranchoidea outside of Cryptobranchidae.[4] In 2022 a more extensive analysis, with greater character and taxon sampling, recovered Chunerpeton tianyiense as a stem-group caudatan, outside the crown group of modern salamanders, and associated with Beiyanerpeton jianpingensis and Qinglongtriton gangouensis.[5]

Chunerpeton tianyiensis has been used to constrain the age of Cryptobranchoidea in over a dozen molecular divergence analyses[5] but given the uncertain affinity of the taxon perhaps it should no longer be used in this way.[5]


It lived with likely stem-group salamanders, e.g. Jeholotriton paradoxus Wang 2000, Liaoxitriton daohugouensis Wang 2004, and Pangerpeton sinensis Wang & Evans 2006 of the same age.

  1. ^ a b Ke-Qin Gao & Neil H. Shubin (27 March 2003). "Earliest known crown-group salamanders" (PDF). Nature. 422 (6930): 424–428. Bibcode:2003Natur.422..424G. doi:10.1038/nature01491. PMID 12660782. S2CID 4411650.
  2. ^ "Chunerpeton tianyiensis - Palaeocritti - a guide to prehistoric animals". www.palaeocritti.com. Retrieved 2022-09-09.
  3. ^ Rong, Yu-Fen; Vasilyan, Davit; Dong, Li-Ping; Wang, Yuan (2020-12-08). "Revision of Chunerpeton tianyiense (Lissamphibia, Caudata): Is it a cryptobranchid salamander?". Palaeoworld. 30 (4): 708–723. doi:10.1016/j.palwor.2020.12.001. ISSN 1871-174X.
  4. ^ Jia, Jia; Anderson, Jason S.; Gao, Ke-Qin (2021-07-23). "Middle Jurassic stem hynobiids from China shed light on the evolution of basal salamanders". iScience. 24 (7): 102744. Bibcode:2021iSci...24j2744J. doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102744. ISSN 2589-0042. PMC 8264161. PMID 34278256.
  5. ^ a b c Jones, Marc E. H.; Benson, Roger B. J.; Skutschas, Pavel; Hill, Lucy; Panciroli, Elsa; Schmitt, Armin D.; Walsh, Stig A.; Evans, Susan E. (2022-07-11). "Middle Jurassic fossils document an early stage in salamander evolution". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119 (30): e2114100119. Bibcode:2022PNAS..11914100J. doi:10.1073/pnas.2114100119. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 9335269. PMID 35858401.