Albanerpetontidae


The Albanerpetontidae are an extinct family of superficially salamander-like batrachians. Albanerpetontids include five genera – Albanerpeton, Anoualerpeton, Celtedens, Shirerpeton and Wesserpeton – and between 10 and 20 known species, spanning about 160 million years from the Bathonian stage of the Middle Jurassic to the beginning of the Pleistocene, about 2.13-2 million years ago. Albanerpetontids were long thought to be salamanders because of their small size and generalized body plans. However, these features are now thought to be ancestral for lissamphibians and not indicative of close relationships between the two groups. One of the things that made them different from salamanders was that their skin was embedded with bony, fish like scales. Albanerpetontids are now recognized as a distinct clade of lissamphibians separate from the three living orders of amphibians – Anura, Caudata, and Gymnophiona. Some studies show them as more closely related to frogs and salamanders than to caecilians, while others show them to be outside of the lissamphibian crown-group. The presence of epipterygoids and a separate supraoccipital at least argues against a position within Batrachia.

Taxonomy

Compiled from Paleofile.com and Mikko Haramo's websites.
Additionally, a specimen of an undescribed albanerpetonid is known from the Cenomanian aged Burmese amber in Myanmar. The specimen had been published in a paper mistakenly as a chamelonid lizard.