Specimen list and landmark coordinates for the palate of early salamanders

Ecological preferences and life history strategies have enormous impacts
on the evolution and phenotypic diversity of salamanders, but the yet
established reliable ecological indicators hinder investigations on the
paleobiology of early salamanders. Here we statistically demonstrate using
geometric morphometric analysis that both the shape of the palate and many
non-shape variables particularly associated with vomerine teeth are
ecologically informative in early stem- and basal crown-group salamanders.
The morphology of the palate is heavily impacted by convergence
constrained by feeding mechanisms and also exhibits clear stepwise
evolutionary patterns with alternative phenotypic designs to cope with
similar functional demand. Paleoecological disparities in early
salamanders had took place before the Middle Jurassic and have achieved
all ecological preferences in the Early Cretaceous. Metamorphosis is
significant in the expansion of ecomorphospace of the palate in early
salamanders. The common ancestor of salamanders is metamorphosed and
terrestrial, and share unified lifestyles with other modern amphibians.