RESEARCH ARTICLE A New Basal Salamandroid (Amphibia, Urodela) from the Late Jurassic of Qinglong, Hebei Province, China Jia Jia, Ke-Qin Gao* School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Beijing, 100871, China *
[email protected] a11111 Abstract A new salamandroid salamander, Qinglongtriton gangouensis (gen. et sp. nov.), is named and described based on 46 fossil specimens of juveniles and adults collected from the Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian) Tiaojishan Formation cropping out in Hebei Province, China. OPEN ACCESS The new salamander displays several ontogenetically and taxonomically significant fea- Citation: Jia J, Gao K-Q (2016) A New Basal tures, most prominently the presence of a toothed palatine, toothed coronoid, and a unique Salamandroid (Amphibia, Urodela) from the Late pattern of the hyobranchium in adults. Comparative study of the new salamander with previ- Jurassic of Qinglong, Hebei Province, China. PLoS ONE 11(5): e0153834. doi:10.1371/journal. ously known fossil and extant salamandroids sheds new light on the early evolution of the pone.0153834 Salamandroidea, the most species-diverse clade in the Urodela. Cladistic analysis places Editor: William Oki Wong, Institute of Botany, CHINA the new salamander as the sister taxon to Beiyanerpeton, and the two taxa together form the basalmost clade within the Salamandroidea. Along with recently reported Beiyanerpe- Received: December 11, 2015 ton from the same geological formation in the neighboring Liaoning Province, the discovery Accepted: April 2, 2016 of Qinglongtriton indicates that morphological disparity had been underway for the sala- Published: May 4, 2016 mandroid clade by early Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) time. Copyright: © 2016 Jia, Gao.