A tadpole fossil found in Argentina, dating back at least 161 million years, is the oldest ever found.
The remains were found back in January 2020, with news of the discovery published on Oct. 30, 2024, in Nature.
The team wasn’t really looking for what they found and stumbled upon their monumental find.
Fossils found in Argentina are the oldest ever found. The fossil shared similarities with modern tadpoles. (Stock)
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The group was actually hunting for dinosaur fossils, according to National Geographic.
What they ended up finding was the oldest known fossil of a tadpole in a piece of sandstone, according to the Associated Press.
The fossil contains parts of the tadpole’s skull and spine, as well as impressions of eyes and nerves, according to the source.
Frogs go through stages of growth known as metamorphosis. (Stock)
“It’s not only the oldest tadpole known, but also the best preserved,” study author Mariana Chuliver, a biologist at Buenos Aires’ Maimonides University, told the AP.
“It’s starting to help shorten the time it takes for a frog to turn into a frog,” said Ben Kligman, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History who was not part of the study, according to the source.
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The found tadpole belongs to the Jurassic genus Notobatrachus degiustoi, according to published research, and provides more insight into the evolution of the frog’s life cycle.
The fossil shares similar characteristics with a modern tadpole. Similarities include a “sorting mechanism feature” present in tadpoles that still exists today, according to the study.
The “sorting machine feature” revealed by the fossils emerged as a similarity between the ancient tadpole and the modern one. (Stock)
The unusually large tadpole remains measured to be six inches long.
Modern frogs vary greatly in size. The largest frog species alive today is the Goliath frog.
Although the tadpoles of these species generally match other frog species in size, they can grow up to 12.5 inches, according to the San Diego Zoo website. These large frogs can weigh up to 7.2 kilograms, per source.
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As for the newly studied tadpole fossil, there was no doubt what it was when it was discovered, but further investigation began to reveal more about the record-breaking discovery.
“When I first saw the remains, I said, ‘Okay, tadpole, no doubt,'” Chuliver said, according to NPR. “But when I saw it under the microscope, I said, ‘Okay, you have the best tadpole ever!’ Because until now, there was no other species of tadpole with a preserved gill skeleton.”
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