Chunerpeton tianyiensis is an extinct species of salamander from the Late JurassicDaohugou Beds in Ningcheng County, Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia), China. It is the only species classified under the genusChunerpeton, which means "early creeping animal".[1] It was a small animal measuring 18 cm in length.[2] It was neotenic, with the retention of external gills into adulthood. In the original description it was placed in Cryptobranchidae, which contains modern giant salamanders.[1] A redescription published in 2020 found it to be a stem-groupcaudatan outside the crown group of modern salamanders.[3] A 2021 study found it to be a member of Cryptobranchoidea outside of Cryptobranchidae.[4] In 2022 a more extensive analysis, with greater character and taxon sampling, recovered Chunerpeton tianyiense as a stem-groupcaudatan, outside the crown group of modern salamanders, and associated with Beiyanerpeton jianpingensis and Qinglongtriton gangouensis.[5]
Chunerpeton tianyiensis has been used to constrain the age of Cryptobranchoidea in over a dozen molecular divergence analyses[5] but given the uncertain affinity of the taxon perhaps it should no longer be used in this way.[5]
