While teliphones are building calamite catacombs, few vertebrates have mastered the arid terrain. One of them was the first angarovenator - Lapideusunguis adam, the "stone nail", which occupied a niche similar to modern geckos.

Lapideusunguis is significantly smaller than Moropiton and, possibly, slightly larger than adult Ariekanerpeton individuals.

Clockwise from top to bottom: Moropiton moropiton ssp. pushkini, pearl mole spider, Lapideusunguis, Oxykoilia, Poseideongenia. In the background - Ichthyocetus megalos

The body is elongated, has a triangular shape in cross section due to the high raised ribs: the thickness from the head to the middle of the tail remains the same. The legs are longer than those of the ancestors, which allows you to travel long distances.

The fingertips are covered with a keratin cover, convergent to the fingertips of tree frogs: they protect the foot from hard and often very hot/cold soil and aggressive substances and allow effective digging.

One recent scientific paper (Evolutionary origin of Hoxc13-dependent skin appendages in amphibians - the pictures above are taken from there) suggests that the claws of amphibians and amniotes were not independently developed, as previously thought. This means that the common ancestor had keratinized fingertips like modern axolotls.

The skin is much thicker (especially the feet and eyelids) than that of the ancestors, but without scales: it hangs slightly at the edges of the trunk. The muzzle is pointed, the head is narrow; the parietal eye is developed, the pupils of ordinary eyes are vertical due to the need to hunt both in the morning sun and in almost complete darkness. The color is bright due to the absence of predators with developed eyesight and serves as a means of communication and recognition of each other at a distance.

Unlike sedentary discosaurids, lapideusunguis is a nomad. Although its anatomy does not allow it to move as fast as modern quadrupeds, this angarovenator constantly (once every two weeks) surveys its territory in search of arthropods. Usually the territory includes two or three calamite catacombs or the usual burrows of some Arachnetiflopontics - Lapideusunguis periodically hunts them, as well as spiders and insects, especially young individuals. His main time of activity is twilight, night and day, he waits in burrows dug by himself or abandoned phone burrows. In the evening, the angarovenator comes out before sunset and basks on the rocks; in the morning it warms up by contracting muscles like some modern pythons - another adaptation important for future evolution.

Another important difference from discosaurids is rapid maturation: instead of 20 years, the larvae mature in a few months. In general, reproduction for lapideusunguis as for amphibians in the desert is a hemorrhoid due to the need to search for a reservoir. Usually, adults are found near the catacombs at night, when rare rains fall. The female lays eggs on wet ground, the male fertilizes the eggs and the female swallows the future offspring like the recently extinct Rheobatrachus silus frogs, after which she drinks some water.

Famous Rheobatrachus silus photo

However, these seymouriamorphs have not yet developed this behavior to perfection, and therefore they usually search for the nearest large body of water, migrating to the remaining forest regions. During the mother's wanderings, the eggs manage to develop into larvae at the beginning or middle of metamorphosis. It is obvious that the following daughter species will abandon the habitat stage in lakes and puddles in favor of throat gestation.

day 1092

1. i hope your friend isn't still sick but if he is, i hope this cheers him up!

There were two species of Rheobatrachus, and they were pretty special. Their name refers to the unique way they incubated their young, different than any other known species of frog. Females swallowed fertilized eggs and once in her stomach acid production would cease, thought due to a chemical contained in the egg jelly. For at least six weeks, the mother ate nothing while the tadpoles developed inside her stomach, which would swell to an enormous size in the body cavity. She vomited them up as fully formed frogs!

They lived in streams and pools, being heavily aquatic. The rarer Northern species, R. vitellinus, occurred in rainforests of the Clarke Range in central eastern Queensland. These frogs were a dark pale brown, with slimy bumpy skin and vivid yellow patches along the underside. R. silus, the Southern frog, was recorded more frequently, living in the Conondale Ranges and Blackall Range in southeast Queensland. It was smaller, more grey in colour, had a cream underside, and dark brown limbs with yellow underneath. R. silus was kept in captivity until the early 1980s, being of great interest to the scientific community. Despite extensive searching none have been seen since 1981. In 1985 chytrid fungus was found in the range of the Northern gastric-brooding frogs, and many dead frogs of other species were observed. It is believed that the spread of chytrid was largely responsible for the extinction of both species.

an inspiration to us all

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day 566

Holocene Extinction Month #18 -- Southern Gastric-Brooding Frog

The southern gastric-brooding frog (Rheobatrachus silus) was one of only two known species of frog that incubated their offspring inside the stomach of the mother. (The other being the northern gastric-brooding frog, R. vitellinus, also recently extinct.) About 5.4cm long (2.1in), it was found only in a small area of mountainous rainforest in southeast Queensland, Australia.

After external fertilization, female gastric-brooding frogs would swallow their eggs. Each egg's coating contained a chemical -- prostaglandin E2 -- which turned off production of stomach acids, allowing the tadpoles to develop without being digested. Incubation took six weeks, during which the mother went entirely without food and her stomach grew to fill most of her body cavity, until the fully metamorphosed froglets were finally "birthed" via vomiting.

Only discovered in the 1970s, the southern gastric-brooding frog's habitat was disrupted by logging activity, invasive weeds, and feral pigs. It may also have been heavily affected by chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease threatening amphibian populations all over the world. The last sighting of the species was in either 1979 or 1981, depending on the source.