Scientists have discovered the oldest ancestor for all Australian tree frogs, with distant links to the tree frogs of South America. Newly discovered evidence of Australia’s earliest species of tree frog challenges what we know about when Australian and South American frogs parted ways on the evolutionary tree. Previously, scientists believed Australian and South American tree frogs separated from each other about 33 million years ago. But in a study published today in Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, palaeontologists from UNSW Sydney say the new species, Litoria tylerantiqua, is now at about 55 million years old, the earliest known member of the pelodryadid family of Australian tree frogs.