Frogs preserved in amber dating back to the end of the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs still existed have been found in Myanmar, giving scientists a picture of how prehistoric frogs lived and how they have evolved since then.
The four frogs found are less than one inch long, which is why they probably had not been discovered in the fossil record so far, study author David Blackburn of the University of Florida said, the BBC reported.
“Frogs have been around on earth for approximately 200 million years,” he said, according to the BBC. “These amber frog fossils indicate that this association [with tropical wet forests] extends back to at least 100 million years ago.”
“It’s almost unheard of to get a fossil frog from this kind of period that is small, has preservation of small bones and is mostly three-dimensional. This is pretty special,” Blackburn said, Science Daily reported.
“Ask any kid what lives in a rainforest, and frogs are on the list,” Blackburn said. “But surprisingly, we have almost nothing from the fossil record to stay that’s a longstanding association.”
Plants, spiders, and insects also were found along with marine molluscs, which indicate freshwater lakes, the BBC reported.
The same amber deposits previously produced a dinosaur tail and baby birds, as well as indications that they came from a rainforest, National Geographic reported.
While the find is a major one, the characteristics herpetologists need to determine how a frog is related to other frogs were missing in the amber-preserved specimens, Science Daily reported. The frog was named Electrorana limoae.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.