'Devil' frog ate dinos for breakfast

Tuesday, 19 February 2008 Will Dunham


Picture is an artists impression for scale.

The giant frog Beelzebufo, or 'devil frog', was the largest frog ever to live on earth (Source: SUNY-Stony Brook)
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It was the biggest, baddest, meanest froggy ever to have hopped on earth.

Scientists have announced the discovery in northwestern Madagascar of a bulky amphibian dubbed the 'devil frog' that lived 65-70 million years ago and was so nasty it may have eaten newborn dinosaurs.

This brute was larger than any frog living today and may be the biggest frog ever to have existed, says US palaeontologist Professor David Krause of Stony Brook University, one of the scientists who found the remains.

Its name, Beelzebufo ampinga, came from Beelzebub, the Greek for devil, and bufo, Latin for toad. Ampinga means shield, named after an armour-like part of its anatomy.

Beelzebufo (pronounced bee-el-zeh-BOOF-oh) was 41 centimetres long and weighed an estimated 4.5 kilograms.

It was powerfully built, and had a very wide mouth and strong jaws. It probably didn't dine daintily.

"It's not outside the realm of possibility that Beelzebufo took down lizards and mammals and smaller frogs, and even, considering its size, possibly hatchling dinosaurs," Krause says.

Their findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


South American relatives
Beelzebufo appears to be closely related to a group of frogs that live today in South America, even though it lived far away, the scientists say.

They are nicknamed Pac-Man frogs due to their huge mouths. Some have little horns on their heads, and the scientists think Beelzebufo also may have had horns, a fitting touch for the devil frog.

Beelzebufo was bigger than any of its South American kin or any other living frog, "as if it was on steroids", Krause says.

The largest one today is the goliath frog of West Africa, which is up to 32 centimetres long and weighs 3.3 kilograms.


Land bridge
The presence of Beelzebufo in Madagascar and its modern relatives in South America is the latest sign a long-lost land bridge.

This once may have linked Madagascar to Antarctica, which was much warmer then, and South America, the scientists say.

That would have let animals move overland.

Fossils have been found of other animals in Madagascar from Beelzebufo's time similar to South American ones.


First frogs
The first frogs appeared about 180 million years ago and their basic body plan has remained unchanged.

Beelzebufo lived during the Cretaceous period at the end of the age of dinosaurs, which went extinct along with many other types of animals 65 million years ago.

Beelzebufo did not live an aquatic lifestyle, hopping among lily pads, the scientists say.

Instead, it lived in a semi-arid environment and may have hunted like its modern relatives, which camouflage themselves and jump out at prey.

Its first fragmentary fossils were found in 1993, and the scientists have since assembled enough fragments to piece its remains together like a jigsaw puzzle, Krause says.

While it was the king of frogs, Beelzebufo is not the largest amphibian ever to have lived.

Many reached truly astounding dimensions, such as the crocodile-like Prionosuchus that grew to an estimated 9 metres during the Permian period, which ended about 250 million years ago.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/02/19/2166580.htm?site=science&topic=latest