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First finding of fish in the diet of a water-dwelling extinct frog Palaeobatrachus from the Upper Oligocene Fossil-Lagerstätte Enspel (Westerwald Mountains, Western Germany)

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Abstract

Lake Enspel was a deep lake which developed in a small trachytic caldera or a bims volcano. One of two finds of aquatic palaeobatrachid specimens from Enspel contains a fish prey as stomach content, which is described for the first time. At the critical time, the lake was meromictic, eutrophic, and without an outlet. The rarity of such finds of water-dwelling frogs is possibly due to the lake margin vegetation acting as some kind of taphonomic filter.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Zbynek Rocek (Prague) and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe RLP, Direktion Landesarchäologie, Referat Erdgeschichte, Große Langgasse 29, 55116, Mainz, Germany

    Michael Wuttke & Markus Poschmann

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  1. Michael Wuttke
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  2. Markus Poschmann
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Correspondence to Michael Wuttke.

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This article is a contribution to the special issue “Fossil-Lagerstätte Enspel – exceptional preservation in an Upper Oligocene maar”

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Wuttke, M., Poschmann, M. First finding of fish in the diet of a water-dwelling extinct frog Palaeobatrachus from the Upper Oligocene Fossil-Lagerstätte Enspel (Westerwald Mountains, Western Germany). Palaeobio Palaeoenv 90, 59–64 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-009-0019-z

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