Ancient devil frog may have eaten baby dinosaurs | U.S. | Reuters
Beelzebufo ampinga was a frog that lived in Madagascar 70 million years ago. At 16 inches long and weighing in at an estimated 10 pounds, this bad boy was so mean he may have fed on newly-hatched dinosaurs.
The largest living frog species is the goliath frog of West Africa, a mere 12.5 inches long and 7.2 pounds.
Graphic by Kazvorpal.
Paleontologist David Krause of Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York, is one of the scientists who discovered the bones in 1993. They pieced together Beelzebufo’s skeleton and recently published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“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 said in a telephone interview.
Beelzebufo has some modern relatives in South America, more evidence supporting the theory that there may once have been a land bridge linking Madagascar to Antarctica and South America. These relatives, the Argentine Horned Frog, are nicknamed the “PacMan Toad” because of the size of their mouths and the way they hunt.
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