Rosa Rubicondior: Creationism Refuted - Now It's an Australian Tree Frog From 55 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'.

Clockwise from bottom: An artist’s reconstruction of a turtle Murgonemys braithwaitei, a bird Murgonornis archeri, a mammal Thylacotinga bartholomaii, a bat Australonycteris clarkae and a frog Platyplectrum casca from Murgon, south-eastern Queensland.

Peter Schouten

Australia’s oldest prehistoric tree frog hops 22 million years back in time

In addition to the recent discovery of early reptile tracks in Australia—dated to 350 million years before 'Creation Week'—creationists have just been given another reason to resent Australia: a 55-million-year-old fossil tree frog.

The discovery was made by three palaeontologists at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, NSW, Australia. Their findings have just been published, open access, in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. It will no doubt take some of creationism's sharpest minds to devise excuses for dismissing this evidence, while continuing to cling to the childish fantasy that Earth was conjured into existence by a magical, immaterial deity just 6,000 to 10,000 years ago—along with all life, fully formed and without ancestors.

The first line of attack will likely involve misrepresenting the dating methods used, in an attempt to cast doubt on their reliability, followed by accusations that the scientists falsified their data to conform to evolutionary 'dogma' and secure publication.

What creationists must never do, however, is admit that the fossil really does date to 55 million years ago. To do so would be to concede that a literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation story is false—thereby undermining the entire premise that the Bible was written by, or inspired by, an all-knowing creator god.

What is known of the evolution of Australian frogs? Evolution of Australian Frogs

Ancient Origins
Frogs likely first appeared over 200 million years ago, during the Triassic period. Australia’s frog lineage has deep roots, shaped by its long geographic isolation after breaking away from Gondwana.

Arrival and Diversification

Australia’s frogs are believed to have diverged from South American and Antarctic relatives tens of millions of years ago.
Some lineages, like the tree frogs (family Pelodryadidae, formerly part of Hylidae), likely dispersed from South America via Antarctica during a warmer, wetter period when land bridges existed.

The Fossil Record

The Australian fossil record of frogs is sparse due to poor fossilisation conditions in their typical habitats.
The 55-million-year-old fossil tree frog from Queensland is now the oldest known in Australia, pushing back the confirmed presence of tree frogs by tens of millions of years.
This fossil supports the theory that modern Australian frogs were already present shortly after the continent became isolated.

Modern Diversity
Australia is home to over 240 known frog species, grouped mainly into three families:

Myobatrachidae – Terrestrial ground frogs like the corroboree frog and spotted marsh frog.
Pelodryadidae – Arboreal tree frogs including the green tree frog (Litoria caerulea).
Microhylidae – Small frogs often found in tropical and subtropical forests.

Adaptations to Extremes
Many Australian frogs have evolved remarkable survival strategies, including:

Burrowing and aestivation in arid zones (e.g., Cyclorana species).
Parental care, such as Rheobatrachus, the now-extinct gastric-brooding frog.
Breeding in ephemeral water or even direct development without a tadpole stage.

Australia’s oldest prehistoric tree frog hops 22 million years back in time
Scientists have discovered the oldest ancestor for all Australian tree frogs, with distant links to the tree frogs of South America.
Newly discovered evidence of Australia’s earliest species of tree frog challenges what we know about when Australian and South American frogs parted ways on the evolutionary tree.

Previously, scientists believed Australian and South American tree frogs separated from each other about 33 million years ago.

But in a study published today in Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, palaeontologists from UNSW Sydney say the new species, Litoria tylerantiqua, is now at about 55 million years old, the earliest known member of the pelodryadid family of Australian tree frogs.

The study is based on fossils unearthed from Murgon on the traditional lands of the Waka Waka people of south-eastern Queensland. The new species, Litoria tylerantiqua, is named in honour of the late Michael Tyler, a renowned Australian herpetologist globally celebrated for his research on frogs and toads.

It is only fitting to name Australia’s earliest tree frog in honour of a man who was a giant in Australian frog research and in particular the first to explore the fossil record for Australian frogs.

Dr Roy Farman, lead author
Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Evolutionary history of Australian tree frogs

Around 55 million years ago, Australia, Antarctica and South America were linked together as the last remnants of the southern supercontinent Gondwana. Global climates were warmer during this period, while a forested corridor linked South America and Australia.

Up until now, it was thought the earliest Australian tree frogs came from the Late Oligocene (about 26 million years ago) and the Early Miocene (23 million years ago). Fossils of the Late Oligocene were found at Kangaroo Well in the Northern Territory and Etadunna Formation at Lake Palankarinna, South Australia, while the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in Queensland revealed tree frogs from the Early Miocene.

But the new species extends the fossil record of pelodryadids by approximately 30 million years, to a time potentially close to the divergence of Australian tree frogs from the South American tree frogs.

Previous estimates based on molecular clock studies – a method scientists use to figure out when different species split from a common ancestor by looking at the rate of genetic changes over time – suggested that Australian and South American tree frogs separated from each other at about 33 million years ago.

Our research indicates that that date is at least 22 million years too young. While molecular studies are important for understanding the evolutionary relationships of different groups of animals, these studies should be calibrated using knowledge from the fossil record and in this case the fossil record provides a more accurate time for separation of the southern world’s tree frogs.

Dr Roy Farman.

Using new technology to study ancient frogs

To conduct this research, the authors used CT scans of spirit-preserved frogs from Australian museum collections to compare the three-dimensional shape of the fossil bones with those of living species. The technique – called three-dimensional geometric morphometrics – has only been used on fossil frogs once before. Using these new methods, they were able to unravel the relationships of these fossils to all other groups of frogs living and extinct.

We had a real problem at the start of this study because the pelvic bones of most living frogs were invisible inside whole pickled frogs rather than available for study as skeletons. Museums understandably want to ensure these often unique or rare pickled specimens remain intact for molecular studies because DNA can be obtained from their soft tissues. This meant that instead of skeletonising these specimens, we needed instead to make CT scans of them, enabling us to create 3D models of their otherwise invisible skeletons. Using these cutting-edge investigative methods, we were able to determine from the shape of the fossil ilia – one of three bones that make up each side of the pelvis – that this new Murgon species of frog is more closely related to the Australian tree frogs (pelodryadids) than the South American tree frogs (phyllomedusids).

Dr Roy Farman.

Three left sided ilia (pelvic fossil bones) which collectively provide the diagnostic information needed to identify the new species.

>div class="credit">UNSW Sydney/Roy Farman.
Seasoned survivors that outlasted the dinosaurs

Litoria tylerantiqua joins the only other Murgon frog, the ground-dwelling Platyplectrum casca (previously described as Lechriodus casca), as the oldest frogs known from Australia. Both have living relatives in Australia and New Guinea demonstrating remarkable resilience over time.

Despite their delicate nature, frogs have been surprisingly successful at surviving several mass extinction events since their origins about 250 million years ago, including the mass extinction 66 million years ago that took out the non-flying dinosaurs. Although global extinction events triggered by human activities – such as rapid climate change and the spread of chytrid fungus – may be among the worst challenges frogs have had to face, the fossil record could reveal how some frog groups overcame previous challenges, perhaps by adapting to new, less-threatening habitats. This could provide clues about how we might be able to help by translocating some threatened frogs into more future-secure habitats.

Dr Roy Farman.

Frogs such as the southern corroboree frog are threatened in their current habitats which have become more hostile due to climate change. The authors say that if the fossil record shows physically similar frogs living in very different habitats, today’s frogs may benefit by being reintroduced into similar environments.

ABSTRACT
The origins and evolution of Australian frogs are poorly understood. The modern Australian frog fauna is diverse and thought to be derived from South America and later from Asia, but its fossil record is relatively sparse. Molecular phylogenies have identified the early Eocene as a potentially important time for the dispersal of hylids into Australia from South America via Antarctica, as well as the diversification of Australia’s earliest frogs. Herein, we describe a new fossil frog from the lower Eocene fossil site of Tingamarra, at Murgon in southeastern Queensland, Australia. We use micro-computed tomography scans and three-dimensional geometric morphometrics to compare the shape of the diagnostic ilium of the new Tingamarra fossil frog with those from four Gondwanan families. Concordance of morphometric and morphological comparisons reveals that this Tingamarra fossil frog ilium likely represents a new species of pelodryadid frogs referable to the genus Litoria, making it Australia’s earliest known pelodryadid. All known Australian fossil frogs identifiable to genus or species have proven to be most closely related to extant congeners. The Tingamarra Litoria tylerantiqua sp. nov. suggests that pelodryadids were present in Australia by the early Eocene, when the continent was still connected to Antarctica and South America as the last remnants of Gondwana, and also provides a potential new fossil calibration for molecular phylogenies of pelodryadids and frog phylogenies more broadly.

INTRODUCTION
The earliest-known fossil frogs in Australia come from the early Eocene of Queensland, and the youngest are subfossils from every state (Bowdler, 1984; Tyler, 1998; Tyler & Godthelp, 1993). In this fossil record, however, there is a significant gap between the early Eocene and the late Oligocene (Table 1). Most Australian fossil frogs come from deposits younger than 25 million years old and hence, not surprisingly, these appear to be most closely related to Australia’s living groups (Roček, 2000). In fact, all fossil frog species described from Australia have been placed in extant families and in most cases still-surviving genera (Roček, 2000; Tyler, 1998). There are two exceptions: the Oligocene–Miocene and Pleistocene pelodryadid genera Australobatrachus and Etnabatrachus, respectively (Hocknull, 2003; Tyler, 1976).

In Australia there are five native frog families containing 28 genera (Clulow & Swan, 2018; Frost, 2024). Three of the genera Australobatrachus, Etnabatrachus, and Rheobatrachus include extinct species (Hocknull, 2003; Tyler, 1976; Tyler & Knight, 2020). Three of the five native frog families (Limnodynastidae, Myobatrachidae, and Pelodryadidae) are thought to have dispersed into Australia via Gondwanan connections with Antarctica and South America (Feng et al., 2017; Tyler, 1998). The other two families (Microhylidae and Ranidae) appear to have dispersed from Asia (Tyler, 1998), via the connection with New Guinea, presumably soon after the Australian plate collided with the Asian Plate during the Middle Miocene (Blakey et al., 2008; Hall, 2011; Merrick et al., 2006; Tyler, 1998). Only Gondwanan frog groups are thought to have been present in Australia during the early Eocene (Feng et al., 2017; Tyler, 1998). All early Eocene specimens so far known have been referable to the limnodynastid Platyplectrum casca (Tyler, 1998; Tyler & Godthelp, 1993). Of the three Gondwanan families, limnodynastids and myobatrachids fall within the clade Australobatrachia which also includes the South American calyptocephalellids. The latter have been inferred to have diverged from other australobatrachians ∼100 Ma (Feng et al., 2017; Mörs et al., 2020.1). The divergence of pelodryadids from South American phyllomedusids is estimated to have occurred around ∼50 Ma (Feng et al., 2017). A “fragmentary anuran maxilla” was reported from the Lower Cretaceous Lightning Ridge locality by Smith (2009: 234, 2010). From examination of photographs provided on request, it is evident that this fossil does not represent an anuran (R.M.F. pers. obs.) and thus the Lightning Ridge deposit does not record the earliest Australian fossil frog remains. As a result, the oldest-known frog described so far from Australia comes from the lower Eocene Tingamarra Local Fauna (LF) from Murgon, southeastern Queensland (Tyler & Godthelp, 1993; Table 1). Formerly described as a leptodactylid or myobatrachid and placed in the extant genus Lechriodus (Tyler & Godthelp, 1993), species of Lechriodus have now been placed in Limnodynastidae and, within that family, have been synonymized with the extant genus Platyplectrum (Dubois et al., 2021). Of the two genera, the latter is the senior synonym. Hence all fossil species within Lechriodus are now placed within Platyplectrum. However, they have not yet been assessed in order to determine whether they fall within the ilial taxonomic framework for species of Platyplectrum as discussed by Farman et al. (2023). Platyplectrum casca is represented in the Tingamarra assemblage by numerous ilia that possess a combination of morphological features that distinguishes this species from all other Australian frogs (Tyler & Godthelp, 1993; Farman et al., 2023). The lower Eocene Tingamarra fossil deposit has also produced Australia’s oldest-known marsupials (Archer et al., 1993.1; Beck, 2012, 2013; Beck et al., 2008.1; Godthelp et al., 1999; Sigé et al., 2009.1), bats (Hand et al., 1994), non-volant placentals (Godthelp et al., 1992), snakes (Scanlon, 2005), mekosuchine crocodiles (Salisbury & Willis, 1996), trionychid turtles (White, 2001) and non-marine birds (Boles, 1999.1; Elzanowski & Boles, 2012.1, 2015; Worthy et al., 2023.1), including potentially the world’s oldest songbirds (Boles, 1995, 1997). Tingamarra’s fossiliferous sediments are composed of green authigenic illite-smectite clays thought to have been deposited in a shallow, low-energy aquatic environment (Beck et al., 2008.1; Godthelp et al., 1992; Salisbury & Willis, 1996). These clays have been K-Ar radiometrically dated as ∼54.6 +/− 0.5 Ma and thus early Eocene in age (Godthelp et al., 1992). Biocorrelative data also support an early Eocene age, given the presence of ‘graculavid’-like presbyornithid birds (Boles, 1999.1; Worthy et al., 2023.1), an archaeonycterid-like bat (Hand et al., 1994) and ‘madtsoiid’ snakes related to South American species (Scanlon, 2005), as well as geological evidence provided by Beck et al. (2008.1; see Supplementary Document 1). A genus commonly reported from fossil localities across Australia is Litoria (Hocknull, 2005.1; Tyler, 1991; Tyler et al., 1990). There are 121 extant species of Litoria currently known from the Australo-Papuan region with species introduced to neighboring islands such as New Zealand, Guam, New Caledonia, and New Hebrides (Vanuatu) (Frost, 2024). Species of Litoria belong to the family Pelodryadidae which also includes species of Cyclorana and Nyctimystes (Frost, 2024). In Australia, the distributions of species of Litoria overlap considerably on the eastern, southern, northern, and southwestern margins of the Australian landmass, as well as in Tasmania (Anstis, 2017.1; Clulow & Swan, 2018; Cutajar et al., 2022; Tyler & Knight, 2020). Taxonomic revision is currently underway in the Litoria species groups (Tyler & Davies, 1978) by Donellan et al. (S. Clulow, pers. comm. 2023), with new genera likely to be erected in the near future. Species of Litoria occupy a wide variety of habitats including wetlands, pools, ponds, rocky gorges, fast-flowing streams and outcrops (Anstis, 2017.1; Clulow & Swan, 2018; Tyler & Davies, 1978). Species of Litoria do not burrow underground and instead occupy trees, soil, rocks but can be largely aquatic (one species only) (Anstis, 2017.1; Clulow & Swan, 2018; Tyler & Davies, 1978). Another genus commonly reported from fossil localities across Australia is Platyplectrum (Tyler et al. 1990; Tyler & Godthelp, 1993; Tyler, 1998). There are six extant species of Platyplectrum from the family Limnodynastidae, with three of the six occurring predominately along the northern portion of mainland Australia and the remaining three in New Guinea (Clulow & Swan, 2018; Cutajar et al., 2022; Frost, 2024). They are found in creek beds, rocky ranges through arid scrublands, coastal rainforest, arid scrublands, wet sclerophyll forest and beneath leaves and debris on rainforest floors. Two of the three Australian species of Platyplectrum are highly adept burrowers (cf. P. fletcheri), and all three rely on small ephemeral pools to reproduce (Anstis, 2017.; Clulow & Swan, 2018). Herein we use geometric morphometrics, computed tomography scans, and taxonomically informative ilial characters to describe three ilia from the Tingamarra LF from Murgon. These differ morphologically and morphometrically from those of other frog species from all Australian and South American families, including species referred to Limnodynastidae, Myobatrachidae, Pelodryadidae, and Phyllomedusidae. In the following analysis, we examine the significance of recognizing this new species in terms of taxonomy, phylogenetics, calibration, and paleoenvironments. All previously reported fossil pelodryadid species from Australia are listed in Table 1.

Farman, R. M., Archer, M., & Hand, S. J. (2025).
Early Eocene pelodryadid from the Tingamarra Local Fauna, Murgon, southeastern Queensland, Australia, and a new fossil calibration for molecular phylogenies of frogs. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. e2477815 https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2025.2477815

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by Informa UK Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

This discovery represents a significant advancement in our understanding of amphibian evolution in Australia. It extends the known fossil record of Australian tree frogs by approximately 30 million years, indicating that these frogs were present on the continent much earlier than previously documented.

The discovery challenges the young-Earth creationist perspective, which posits that Earth and all life forms were created over a few days approximately 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. The existence of a 55-million-year-old tree frog fossil contradicts this timeline, providing tangible evidence of life forms existing millions of years before the proposed creationist timeframe. Such findings underscore the importance of the fossil record in informing our understanding of Earth's biological history and highlight the discrepancies between scientific evidence and literal interpretations of ancient texts.

The thought that the Bible could be so wrong is of course the most terrifying idea a creationist can contemplate, which is why they're prepared to perform the most contorted of mental gymnastics to avoid doing do. Apparently, they believe the god they perport to worship would prefer them to be intellectually bankrupt rather than intellectually honest.

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