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Miniaturization: anatomical novelties at the origin of the Lissamphibia

Thursday, November 12, 2026 7:17

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You, Xu and Benson 2026 reported,
“Evolutionary miniaturization is often accompanied by phenotypic rearrangement, and may play an important role in occupying new adaptive zones.

Figure 1. Vertebrates at the transition from stem-tetrapod to tetrapod in the LRT. Trypanognathus is the most primitive known tetrapod in the LRT, despite its late appearance in the latest Carboniferous. — Figure 1. Phylogenetic miniaturization demonstrated in vertebrates at the transition from finned pre-tetrapod to fingered tetrapod in the LRT = a new adaptive zone. Trypanognathus is the most primitive known tetrapod in the LRT, despite its late appearance in the latest Carboniferous. Note the size decrease, recognized only here. For Lissamphibians, see figure 2.

“This process has hypothesised relevance to the origin of lissamphibians, which include the smallest living tetrapods.

See figure 3 for Brachycephalus pulex, the smallest living frog.

Figure 2. Tiny Chinlestegophis nests with Tersomius in the LRT at the base of the Lissamphibia – smaller than the outgroup taxon, Dendrerpeton.

“We test this by quantifying patterns of evolution of body size and other traits, using a dataset of 577 fossil and extant members of the lissamphibian total-group.

The LRT used only 3 taxa,
(out of 2340 tested taxa) basal members of the Lissamphibia and the proximal outgroup taxon, Dendrerpeton (Fig 2).

“We find that initial body size reduction occurred on the direct stem lineage leading to Lissamphibia and further miniaturization occurred in the crown group, giving rise to the down-shifted size distribution of living species.

Figure 3. Brachycephalus pulex, the smallest living frog shown here about full scale.

“This coincides with rearrangements of skull morphology and the diversification of body shapes, indicating invasion of a fundamentally distinct adaptive zone. Our finding provides a compelling case of the potential contribution of miniaturization to ecological innovation at a macroevolutionary scale, facilitating the diversification and persistence of lissamphibians through ~300 million years of evolutionary time.”

Nice to see other authors also find that phylogenetic miniaturization leads to anatomical novelties in frogs + salamanders, as in a long list of new clades in the large reptile tree (LRT, 2340 taxa).

Figure 2. Four microsaurs leading to caecilians in the LRT. — Figure 4. Four microsaurs leading to caecilians in the LRT.

Following tradition,
the authors included tiny almost worm-like caecilians in their Lissamphibia. This is not supported by the LRT, which nests caecilians with microsaurs (Fig 4). IMHO they should have recovered this after testing 577 taxa.

The three taxa in figure 2 do not appear in the You, Xu and Benson text.

References
You Y, Xu X and Benson RBJ 2026. Miniaturization coincides with anatomical novelties during lissamphibian origins November 2026National Science Review DOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwag691

Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2026/11/12/miniaturization-anatomical-novelties-at-the-origin-of-the-lissamphibia/

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