Travel 70 million years into the past. Dinosaurs still ruled the world, but they weren't the only creatures roaming its surface. In the northwest of the island of Madagascar, with a subtropical climate alternating between intense rains and long droughts, there lived a frog whose size exceeded that of any frog we can find today. Named "Beelzebufo ampinga" by experts, its head and jaw were so powerful that it could even devour small dinosaurs.
Whenever we think of the "age of the dinosaurs", images of a T-Rex or what we call "brontosaurus" (for obvious popularity reasons) automatically come to mind, but there were other impressive creatures at that time, surviving and adapting to a relentless Earth. 70 million years ago, on the island of Madagascar, there existed a frog. A frog that is probably the largest that has ever lived on this planet. That's no small feat, considering that today there are huge specimens like the Argentine horned frog (Ceratophrys ornata) which reaches 17 centimeters.
The "Frog from Hell" and "The Devil Toad" are just two colorful names used by the press to describe Beelzebufo ampinga, discovered in 1993 by paleontologist David W. Krause, but experts needed 14 years to gather additional samples, compile the data, and make the presentation. In total, about 75 fossil fragments have been found, allowing researchers to reconstruct a large part of the skeleton and almost all of its skull.
How big was it?
So... how big was Beelzebufo? The most recent calculations reveal that it could exceed 40 centimeters. The only modern frog that comes close is Goliath (Conraua goliath), currently at risk, with a maximum of 32 centimeters. Beelzebufo was also very heavy, averaging 4.5 kilograms. The data suggest that Beelzebufo moved by walking instead of hopping, and that its body shape made it more resistant to dry seasons. Another possibility is that Beelzebufo built burrows to protect itself from the heat during the hottest and driest times of the year.
https://old.neoteo.com/la-invasion-las-aves-del-terror/A powerful bite
However, the most impressive thing was its head. Beelzebufo's skull was hyperossified, "armored" with additional bone tissue. Its mouth was very wide, and so far, everything seems to indicate that its bite was very powerful. A 2017 study published data on the bite of Ceratophrys cranwelli (Cranwell's horned frog), and corrected the scale to estimate values for Beelzebufo, yielding values between 500 and 2,200 Newtons, comparable to the force of several modern carnivorous mammals.
https://old.neoteo.com/cuando-oxigeno-se-convirtio-veneno-puro/The mystery of its origin
Despite all this work, the biggest question experts have about Beelzebufo is its origin. The frog was found in Madagascar, but it shares multiple characteristics with South American frogs. The problem isn't just geographical, but also temporal: The connection between South America and Madagascar via Antarctica broke 115 million years ago, and the ancestors of these frogs emerged 88 million years ago, long after the separation. The best hypothesis? Convergent evolution, two different species with similar lifestyles that develop similar adaptations. In other words, we don't know where it came from or how it left, but we know it existed... and it was big.
