News article: fossils, DNA, frogs, & teeth!

The tree frog in question (Wikimedia commons)

A student forwarded me this interesting New York Times article about a frog species that has evolved to have teeth on its lower jaw.  This trait, lost at least 230 million years ago (MYA) in frogs, appears to have reemerged approximately 5-17 MYA in a marsupial tree frog.  

Read The Times article highlighting this research: A Frog Evolved to Regain the Teeth Its Ancestors Jettisoned.

Or better yet, go to the source article by Dr. Weins! Re-evolution of lost mandibular teeth in frogs after more than 200 million years, and re-evaluating Dollo's law.

This research was originally published in the peer-reviewed scientific Journal Evolution by John J. Weins (2011).  The full article includes figures with phylogenetic trees illustrating relatedness among species based on genetic DNA results and teeth presence/absence.