Described on the basis of disarticulated postcranial bones (vertebrae, humeri, ilia) from karst deposits of Scythian age at the locality of Czatkowice in the Kraków Upland, Poland, Czatkobatrachus polonicus gen. et sp. n. is the first salientian known from the Triassic of the Northern part of Pangea. It may be only slightly younger (about 5 MA) than Triadobatrachus massinoti (Piveteau, 1936) from Madagascar, the only Early Triassic salientian known hitherto. Czatkobatrachus resembles Triadobatrachus but is more derived in some features of the vertebrae and elbow joint. It provides evidence of a global distribution of stem-frogs at the very beginning of the Mesozoic, and suggests that the origin of the group must be sought in the Permian.

Key words: Anura, Lissamphibia, Salientia, Triassic, Poland.

Susan E. Evans [ucgasue@ucl.ac.uk], Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, England. Magdalena Borsuk-Białynicka [borsuk.b@twarda.pan.pl], Instytut Paleobiologii PAN, ul. Twarda 51/55, PL-00-818 Warszawa, Poland.