Wildlife in Texas - Types of Texan Animals

Creature Named After Kermit The Frog Offers Clues On Amphibian Evolution, Scientists Say

Scientists on Thursday described the fossilized skull of a creature called Kermitops gratus that lived in Texas about 270 million years ago.

The fossil was collected in 1984 near Lake Kemp in Texas.

It has been kept in the expansive collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

There definitely were no muppets during the Permian Period, but there was a Kermit - or at least a forerunner of modern amphibians that has been named after the celebrity frog.

Scientists on Thursday described the fossilized skull of a creature called Kermitops gratus that lived in what is now Texas about 270 million years ago. It belongs to a lineage believed to have given rise to the three living branches of amphibians - frogs, salamanders and limbless caecilians.

While only the skull - measuring around 1.2 inches long - was discovered, the researchers think Kermitops had a stoutly built salamander-like body roughly 6-7 inches long, though salamanders would not evolve for another roughly 100 million years.

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Amphibians are one of the four groups of living terrestrial vertebrates, along with reptiles, birds and mammals. The unique features of the Kermitops skull - a blend of archaic and more advanced features - are providing insight into amphibian evolution.

A composite image is seen comparing the fossil skull of the Permian Period proto-amphibian Kermitops, left, with the skull of a modern frog. (Brittany M. Hance, Smithsonian/Handout via REUTERS)

"Kermitops helps us understand the early history of amphibians by revealing there isn't a clear trend of step by step becoming more like the modern amphibian," said Calvin So, a George Washington University paleontology doctoral student and lead author of the study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

The fossil was collected in 1984 near Lake Kemp in Texas and kept in the expansive collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, but was not thoroughly studied until recently.

Kermitops had a rounded snout, not unlike frogs and salamanders. Preserved in its eye sockets were palpebral bones - or eyelid bones - a feature absent in today's amphibians. Its skull is constructed of roof-like bones, in contrast to the thin and strut-like bones of modern amphibians.

"The length of the skull in front of the eyes is longer than the length of the skull behind the eyes, which differs from the other fossil amphibians living at the same time. We think this might have allowed Kermitops to snap its jaws closed faster, enabling capture of fast insect prey," So said.

The fossil record of early amphibians and their forerunners is spotty, making it difficult to figure out the origins of modern amphibians.

"Kermitops, with its unique anatomy, really exemplifies the importance of continuing to add new fossil data to understanding this evolutionary problem," said National Museum of Natural History paleontologist and study co-author Arjan Mann.

Kermit the Frog was created by the late American puppeteer Jim Henson in 1955, and a Kermit puppet made in the 1970s is in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History as an important cultural object.

Kermitops means "Kermit face," a nod to the muppet's humorous look.

"We thought that the eyelid bones gave the fossil a bug-eyed look, and combined with a lopsided smile produced by slight crushing during the preservation of the fossil, we really thought it looked like Kermit the Frog," So said.

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Kermitops belonged to a group called temnospondyls that arose a few tens of millions of years after the first land vertebrates evolved from fish ancestors. The biggest temnospondyls superficially resembled crocodiles, including two that each were around 20 feet in length, Prionosuchus and Mastodonsaurus.

Temnospondyls are considered the progenitor lineage of modern amphibians, Mann said.

Kermitops existed about 20 million years before the worst mass extinction in Earth's history and about 40 million years before the first dinosaurs. It lived alongside other members of the amphibian lineage as well as the impressive sail-backed Dimetrodon, a predator related to the mammalian lineage.

The environment in which Kermitops lived appears to have alternated between warm and humid seasons and hot and arid seasons.

"This environment would be similar to modern-day monsoons that take place in the Southwest U.S. And Southeast Asia," So said.

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New 270-million-year-old Amphibian Species Could Help Explain Evolution Of Frogs

Scientists have discovered a new ancient amphibian species that could bridge the gap in understanding how modern-day frogs and salamanders developed.

The fossilized skull of the 270-million-year-old amphibian ancestor was first unearthed in 1984 in a rock formation in Texas. However, it spent decades sitting in a collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History waiting to be studied.

In 2021, a group at the Smithsonian finally began examining the fossil to determine what prehistoric creature the fossil belonged to. The findings were published Thursday in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

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Paleontologists have playfully named the new species Kermitops gratus in honor of the Kermit the Frog, created by Jim Henson.

Calvin So, a doctoral student at the George Washington University and the paper's lead author, said naming the creature after the beloved character is also an opportunity to get the public excited about the discovery.

Newly discovered proto-amphibian, Kermitops (USNM PAL 407585) from the Department of Paleobiology collections at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. The species is named after Kermit the Frog.

Brittany M. Hance, Smithsonian Institution

"Using the name Kermit has significant implications for how we can bridge the science that is done by paleontologists in museums to the general public," he said in a release. "Because this animal is a distant relative of today's amphibians, and Kermit is a modern-day amphibian icon, it was the perfect name for it."

Researchers said they discovered the fossil was a type of temnospondyl, a primitive amphibian that lived more than 200 million years ago mainly during the the Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic periods.

The one-inch-long fossil has many unique characteristics that scientists realized made it different from previously discovered species. It has large, oval-shaped eye sockets and a skull with a short region behind the eyes but an elongated, curbed snout.

This head shape suggests the animal ate grubs -- which are the larval form of certain beetle species -- and other small insects, similar to frogs and salamanders.

There are some differences between Kermitops and present-day amphibians. The team discovered the skull has palpebral bones, or eyelid bones. Meanwhile, amphibians have moveable eyelids and have a third eyelid called a nictitating membrane that provides lubrication and protection.

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Additionally, researchers found evidence of teeth, though not in the same place as modern-day frogs, most of which have small teeth on the upper jaws and roof of their mouths.

The Smithsonian team said that the history of amphibians and their ancestors documented through fossils is "fragmentary" due to their small and delicate bones, which has made it a challenge to study the evolution to their modern-day counterparts. The discovery of Kermitops, however, could help answer some questions about the evolutionary path.

"Kermitops offers us clues to bridge this huge fossil gap and start to see how frogs and salamanders developed these really specialized traits," So said.

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