Brachycormus is an extinct genus of salamandrid

Salamandridae

Salamandridae is a family of salamanders consisting of true salamanders and newts. Currently, 74 species have been identified in the northern hemisphere - Europe, Asia, the northern tip of Africa and North America...

 amphibian

Amphibian

Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...

 from the Oligocene

Oligocene

The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...

 of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. Neoteny

Neoteny

Neoteny , also called juvenilization , is one of the two ways by which paedomorphism can arise. Paedomorphism is the retention by adults of traits previously seen only in juveniles, and is a subject studied in the field of developmental biology. In neoteny, the physiological development of an...

 is evident in some larval specimens by the retention of branchial arches and a high degree of ossification

Ossification

Ossification is the process of laying down new bone material by cells called osteoblasts. It is synonymous with bone tissue formation...

 in the hyobranchial skeleton. The reason for this neoteny may be explained by a drop in global temperature during the Oligocene cooling event

Geologic temperature record

The Geologic temperature record are changes in Earth's environment as determined from geologic evidence on multi-million to billion year time scales...

, which may have induced a delay in somatic

Somatic

The term somatic means 'of the body',, relating to the body. In medicine, somatic illness is bodily, not mental, illness. The term is often used in biology to refer to the cells of the body in contrast to the germ line cells which usually give rise to the gametes...

 development in relation to the gonadal development of these animals, thus allowing them to breed at the larval stage and shift the timing of their developmental change to cope with the changes in climate.