GIANT Frog Fossil Found
If you went looking for frogs today on the island of Madagascar, the largest one
you could find would be just over four inches long. But if you went looking for frogs
more than 65 million years ago, you could have found some giants.
A team of researchers discovered the fossils of what may be the largest frog ever
to exist on planet Earth. The frog, named Beelzebufo, or “devil frog,” was 16-inch
across and 10-pounds. It hopped around Madagascar at the end of the Mesozoic
Era - 65 to 70 million years ago.
Paleontologist David Krause discovered the first bones of the giant frog in
Madagascar in 1993. Since then, Krause and his team have gathered some 75 fossil
frog fragments, enough to reconstruct the frog's skeleton, including nearly the
entire skull.
According to the fossil skeleton, this frog was a powerful animal with a protective
shield, an extremely wide mouth and powerful jaws. These traits made Beelzebufo
able to kill lizards and other small vertebrates, perhaps even baby dinosaurs. This
frog was a voracious predator.
Beelzebufo is in the group of frogs that have huge mouths – mouths large enough
to be worthy of the group’s nickname: 'pac-man' frogs.
Fossil frog experts Susan Evans and Marc Jones discovered that Beelzebufo is
most likely related to frogs living today in South America.
“We're asking ourselves, 'What's a 'South American' frog doing half-way around
the world, in Madagascar?'" said David Krause.
This is the first time a fossil group has been found in Madagascar, an island off
Africa's southeast coast, with living relatives in South America, over 7,000 miles
(11,000 km) away. Other fossils have been found on both Madagascar to South
America including closely related fossils of plant-eating and meat-eating dinosaurs,
crocodiles, and mammals.