Early Salamanders from Northern China

火蜥蜴是现存两栖动物的主要类群之一。不幸的是，人们对它们的早期进化知之甚少，因为早期的火蜥蜴化石还没有被发现。事实上，到目前为止，只有两个相关时代的物种已知。我们现在有一个不同寻常的机会来研究火蜥蜴的进化和多样性的主要问题。在过去的三年里，我们从蜥蜴历史的最早部分恢复了800多个保存完好的蜥蜴标本。这些遗址来自中国北部，包含高度多样化和保存完好的火蜥蜴动物群。这些遗址已经获准进入，可以很容易地进行开采，以努力恢复更多的标本。这些遗址和这些材料的重要性在于它的年代(这些是已知的最早的火蜥蜴)，它的丰富性(每个遗址可以收集数百具关节骨骼)，它的分类多样性(存在几个不同的科)，它的生活史多样性(生命周期的许多不同部分都被保存下来)，以及它的特殊保存(经常出现软组织印记)。该项目的主要目标包括：1.从中国北部特殊的化石单元中收集新的化石并评估其相对年龄；2.描述新的火蜥蜴化石并修正已知的类群；3.获取化石和现代火蜥蜴的演化和地理史；4.利用新的火蜥蜴材料的精心保存来研究形态变异是如何演变的。

Salamanders are one of the major groups of living amphibians. Unfortunately, very little is known about their early evolution because early salamander fossils have not been recovered. Indeed until now, only two species from the relevant time was known. We are now presented with an unusual opportunity to investigate major questions of salamander evolution and diversity. Over the past three years, we have recovered more than 800 superbly preserved salamander specimens from the earliest parts of salamander history. These sites, from northern China, contain a highly diverse and well preserved fauna of salamanders. Access to these sites has been granted and they can readily be quarried in an effort to recover even more specimens. The importance of these sites and this material lies in its age (these are among the earliest known salamanders), its abundance (hundreds of articulated skeletons can be collected from each site), its taxonomic diversity (several different families are present), its life-history diversity (many different parts of the life cycle are are all preserved), and its exceptional preservation (soft-tissue impressions are often present). Major goals of this project include: 1. to collect new fossils from and assess the relative age of the exceptional fossil-bearing units northern China, 2. to describe new fossil salamanders and revise known taxa, 3. to access the evolutionary and geographic history of fossil and Recent salamanders, and 4. to use the exquisite preservation of the new salamander material to address how morphological variation has evolved.