Novo anuro do membro Crato (aptiano) da formação Santana, Bacia do Araripe

Abstract

In this study a new Aptian genus and species of Neo batrachia of the Leptodactylidae family are described, found in the laminated limestones of the Crato Member of the Santana Formation, Araripe Basin, that outcrops in Nova Olinda Municipality, south of the Ceará State, Brazil, preserved with the almost complete articulated skel eton and remains of tissue. This new species is characterizated for possessing narrow maxilla with pedicelated teeth; vomer with a distinct six teethtorus dentigerus; separate nasals for the parasphenoid; large optical capsules; radioulna more shorter and robust than humerus; length of femora similar to the tibiofibula; astragalus and calcaneum fusioned; digit IV more longer than digits III and V; and distal extremity of the terminal phalanges slightly incurvated and knotted. About thaphonomy for having been preserved with the bent legs, the specimen must have been dehydrated in subaerial environment before being re-covered by sediments when the waters had covered th e lake margins where it died, having suffered little or no destruction for scavengers or ganisms, being then parautoctonous. Since current Leptodactylidae, must have lived between the semi-aquatic and marginal vegetation lakes, feeding on small insects and and being preyed upon by juvenile crocodilians. Having only been registered in Araripe, northeastern Brazil, does no t allow suggest a route or paleobiogeographic distribution, and nor confirm the hypothesis of northeastern Brazil have been temporarily African during some period of the Cretaceous.