We characterized eight microsatellite loci to study spatial and temporal population structure of Pelodytes punctatus, a European anuran that has a peculiar breeding pattern among amphibians. The eight loci proved to be highly polymorphic with the number of alleles per locus ranging from two to 15 within two populations. Cross-amplification indicates that those markers may be also useful for clo...

The Peirópolis paleontological site (Late Cretaceous, Maastrichtian) in Minas Gerais State, Brazil yielded an important assemblage of fossil vertebrates. The typical occurrence of South American widespread taxa in Peirópolis is important for correlation between the Brazilian Bauru Basin and Argentinean Late Cretaceous basins. The fishes, turtles, anuran, crocodilians and dinosaurs known from Pe...

Dissection of 44 specimens of the colubrid snake Thamnodynastes strigatus (Serpentes: Colubridae) provided data on food habits. Prey items include frogs (71.4% of the sample), rodents (14.3%), fishes (10.7%), and lizards (3.6%). The most of the anuran species recorded (Bufo sp., Leptodactylus sp., Physalaemus cuvieri and Scinax fuscovarius) are ground dwellers or call at the water level. Field ...

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the causative agent of chytridiomycosis, was found in 24 of 109 (22%) frogs from Kibale National Park, western Uganda, in January and June 2006, representing the first account of the fungus in six species and in Uganda. The presence of B. dendrobatidis in an equatorial African montane forest raises conservation concerns, considering the high amphibian diversity a...

The morphology of typical anuran amphibian papillae is thoroughly distinct from that of urodeles. However, the morphological discontinuity lies not between the frogs and the salamanders, but between the most primitive living frog, Ascaphus truei, and the more derived anurans. Three features distinguishing the papillae of more derived anurans from that of Ascaphus apparently provide peripheral t...