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A fossilized batrachian that live alongside the dinosaur 100 million years ago has been discovered with a belly full of eggs — the oldest such frog ever found , scientists have annunciate .
Researchers trust the frog was likely kill during union , when the female may have been drowned by a male that was gripping her .
The gravid frog was discovered in China and lived 100 million years ago, alongside the dinosaurs.
Frogs do not get pregnant . rather , female frogs develop a batch of eggs that they are quick to lie , in what is known as a " gravid " province . The eggs are finally laid and fertilized by a male person .
The gravid frog , from the speciesGansubatrachus qilianensis , was found in a dodo bedin northwestChinaand dates from theCretaceous period(145 million to 66 million years ago ) , researchers revealed in a subject published Feb. 6 in the journalRoyal Society B : Biological Sciences .
Fossilized frogs from this period are exceedingly scarce , and those that have keep up soft tissue are even rarer . This specimen is more extraordinary still , as it ’s the earliest documented record of a gravid frog , the researchers noted .
Artist impression of frog life in the Cretaceous.
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The scientists compared the fossilized gravid frog with other antecedently discover specimen . They built a high - resolution modelling of its skeleton using computed tomography ( CT ) scans of the fossil , and dissect the composition of its eggs using X - rays . Their depth psychology suggested that the anuran was still skeletally immature , meaning she was able to sexually reproduce before being physically amply developed . Though this is common in many New animal , there was previously no direct fogy evidence that this was the font for ancient frog and salientian .
" The evolution of reproduction , specially reproductive strategy , is a very important part of biological evolution , " chair authorBaoxia Du , a paleontologist at Lanzhou University in China , told Live Science .
Understanding the reproductive strategies employed by other frogs could pop the question valuable brainwave into their complete reproductive history , he added .
As the frog was skeletally immature , the investigator rein out old age as her cause of expiry . Environmental cistron , such as abrupt changes in water system condition or algae rosiness , were also unlikely , as evidence of this would ’ve been apparent in the deposits analyse , Du said .
Few other frog fossils were find in the deposits , suggesting that some disastrous result was not the culprit as it would have lead to a aggregative death and numerous batrachian fossils nearby .
" We currently believe that the most likely grounds of expiry is weakness or even suffocation after ' amplexus behavior , ' which is quite common among existing frogs , ” Du say .
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Amplexus , which means bosom in Latin , describes the behavior when males mount and grapple onto female with their front legs for hour or day at a time until her eggs are fertilized . In doing this , the female may have died from drowning or exhaustion , according to the study .
While more fossil records are required to support the findings that early frogs were sexually ripe before adulthood , the discovery leave a tantalizing glimpse into the maturation of ancient frog . " The fact that [ early frogs ] thrived during the dinosaur era and endured multiple mass quenching cause studying their survival strategies highly valuable , " Du said .
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