 Salamanders split off from the other amphibians during the mid- to late Permian , and initially were similar to modern members of the Cryptobranchoidea . Their resemblance to lizards is the result of symplesiomorphy , their common retention of the primitive tetrapod body plan , and they are no more closely related to lizards than they are to mammals . Their nearest relatives are the frogs and toads , within Batrachia . The earliest known salamander fossils have been found in geological deposits in China and Kazakhstan , dated to the middle Jurassic period around 164 million years ago . 
