Previously thought to be a salamander (Prosirenidae), Albanerpeton Estes and Hoffstetter (Jurassic to Miocene) possesses no known features otherwise restricted to salamanders. Its salamander-like features are only those held in common with small, limbed, non-saltatorial amphibians in general. In still other aspects (including feeding apparatus, dermal bones of the skull, and anterior cervical vertebrae), Albanerpeton appears unique. Already well isolated from salamanders, Albanerpeton seems no nearer phyletically to any other known amphibians, from Devonian to Recent. The relationships of Albanerpeton are most consistently indicated by classification in its own family (Albanerpetontidae, new) and order (Allocaudata, new), perhaps referrable to the Lissamphibia.

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A new species of Taricha is described from the Oligocene John Day Formation of Oregon. The new species, represented by a single nearly complete skeleton, shows features intermediate between the subgenera Palaeotaricha and Taricha, but is closest to the latter taxon.

The bony frontosquamosal arch, found in most newts, is suggested to function in lessening injury during attack by predators. The arch strengthens the skull, protects the retracted eyes, and correlates with postcranial defensive structures. Newts also have tetrodotoxin in the skin, and this is probably the ultimate factor in the evolutionary development and maintenance of the arch. Cranial strengthening in anurans with poisonous or distasteful skin probably serves a similar function.

Descriptions of the trunk musculature of six species representing sex genera and five families of caecilians reveal considerable variation, which may be useful in future systematic studies. The muscle units of the external muscular sheath (M. dorsalis trunci, M. subvertebralis) of caecilians are homologous with, and closely similar in position to, those of salamanders. The major difference in trunk musculature is the presence in caecilians of an additional muscle layer ventral to the M. subvertebralis. This muscle may be a neomorphic derivative from either the M. subvertebralis or the M. transversus. Unlike burrowing reptiles, which have ball-and-socket intervertebral joints, caecilians have retained the primitive amphicoelous centrum and compensate for stresses associated with burrowing by the presence of intercentral ligaments and interlocking basapophyses and subcentral keels. Association of Uraeotyphlus with the Ichthyophiidae and the validity of the Rhinatrematidae are supported by data from the trunk musculature.