Salientia

High school (ages 12+)
Animals & Nature

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/salientia

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the scientific name?Salientia
2. What is the paleontological origin?Earliest fossil evidence from Early Triassic of Madagascar
3. When did the first proto-frog appear?The earliest known proto-frog fossils were found in the Early Triassic period in Madagascar. Scientists think the Salientia lineage may have started even earlier, around 265 million years ago in the Permian period.
4. Why did Salientia evolve the ability to jump?Jumping helped them escape predators and find food. It also let them move between water places and dry land more easily.

Total Group: A taxonomic concept including an extant group and all its extinct relatives.
Stem-Anuran: Extinct, ancestral amphibians more closely related to frogs than other amphibian orders.
Saltation: The act of leaping or jumping, a key locomotive adaptation in Salientia.
Adaptive Radiation: The diversification of a group of organisms into forms filling different ecological niches.