Mesobatrachia is the second largest of the
Anura suborders of amphibians. It contains 6 families, 20 genera and 168 species. This is, of course, not matched to the 5,047 species noted in the
Neobatrachia suborder. The name suggests they are moderately old (compared to the prefixes
archeo- "ancient" and
neo- "new" of the other two suborders).
Mesobatrachia are a relatively new group, only having been identified as such in 1993.
References
- Gissi, Carmela; Diego San Mauro, Graziano Pesole and Rafael Zardoya (2006). "Mitochondrial phylogeny of Anura (Amphibia): A case study of congruent phylogenetic reconstruction using amino acid and nucleotide characters". Gene 366 228–237.
- San Mauro, Diego; Miguel Vences, Marina Alcobendas, Rafael Zardoya and Axel Meyer (2005). "Initial diversification of living amphibians predated the breakup of Pangaea". American Naturalist 165 590–599. – Scholar search
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