The Earliest Fossil of the African Clawed Frog (Genus Xenopus) from Sub-Saharan Africa

Although the fossil record of pipoid frogs is more extensive than for other anuran clades, crown-group genera are poorly documented throughout the Cenozoic. We report an isolated neurocranium from the Nsungwe Formation (∼25 million years ago; Oligocene) in southwestern Tanzania, providing the earliest evidence for the genus Xenopus in sub-Saharan Africa. The specimen is well preserved, allowing us to use three-dimensional geometric morphometrics...