The frog got explosively diversified by "asteroid collision" which extincted the dinosaur

BySilk Knoll

Frogs are rich in vertebrates among themselves and there are as many as 6,700 frogs on the earth, but genetic data was insufficient to unravel the evolutionary history, so why are the frog types so much I do not know if it is also diverse. However, according to a survey conducted by a research team at Nakayama University in China, it was found that 88% of the ancestors of existing frogs were born at about the same time. And this diversification is seen as occurred when asteroids hit the earth 66 million years ago and the dinosaurs ceased to extinction.

Frog evolution linked to dinosaur asteroid strike - BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40482039

Researchers firstly extracted the core set of 95 genes from the DNA of 156 different frogs and combined with genetic information of more than 145 kinds of frogs previously published in the past, genetic "frog phylogenetic tree "Was created. After that, he added the timeline to the phylogenetic trees using the genetic data which is "root" extracted from frog fossils. In frogs there are groups such as Hyloidea (superfamily), Microhylidae (fly frogs), and Natatanura (fagaceae), but as you follow the phylogenetic tree, the frogs of the three groups originate from 66 million years ago It seems there was.

BySouwoon Cho

Professor Peng Zhang of Nakayama University said, "A result that has never been seen before has appeared.We repeatedly analyzed using multiple parameter settings, but the results were the same. The signal that is shown is powerful and there is no mistake. " Also, David Blackburn of the Florida Museum of Natural History that participated in the research also said, "Frogs existed 200 million years ago, but until there was extinction of the dinosaurs, there were not as many diverse frogs we now saw It is said.

Asteroid collision has caused most of the life on Earth to die, but then the forest has recovered, and frogs are considered to have become one of the living organism groups quickly adapted to the new environment. It is supporting this theory that the ancestors of frogs whose trees are habitat are all born following the asteroid collision.

ByNASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

Researchers also found that the distribution of current frog species isPangea ContinentYaGondwana continentsuch asSuper continentIt also shows that it is related to the division of. When entering the Cretaceous, the continental West Gondwana divides into the African Continent and the South American Continent, the East Gondwana continent is on the Indian subcontinent and Madagascar Island, on the Antarctic continent and the Australian continentSplitHowever, at this time, the frogs spread to South America and Australia using Antarctica.

"Among the things shown in our research, the most exciting thing about me is that the frog is a very strong group of creatures, from the events of which the dinosaurs were completely destroyed and many species were annihilated , They survived, "Professor Peng Zhang said. Three quarters of life on Earth died out due to the collision of energy asteroids said to be one billion times more than nuclear bombs, but for frog this was a new stage of evolution. On the other hand, in modern times habitats are decreasing and many species are in danger.