Embryological evidence for a possible polyphyletic origin of the recent amphibians.

The markedly different mode of mesoderm formation in anuran and urodelan amphibians (which is related to the early double-layered nature of the anuran blastula wall in contrast to its single-layered nature in the urodeles), but particularly the fundamentally different place and mode of origin of the primordial germ cells in the two groups of amphibians, strongly pleads in favour of a very ancient bifurcation in the phylogenetic history of the two groups, even suggesting a polyphyletic origin from different ancestral fishes.