A
frog the size of a bowling ball, with heavy armor and teeth, lived
among dinosaurs millions of years ago — intimidating enough that
scientists who unearthed its fossils dubbed the beast Beelzebufo, or
Devil Toad.
But its size — 10 pounds and 16 inches
long — isn't the only curiosity. Researchers discovered the creature's
bones in Madagascar. Yet it seems to be a close relative of
normal-sized frogs who today live half a world away in South America,
challenging assumptions about ancient geography.
Paleontologist
David Krause of Stony Brook University in New York made the discovery
and is collaborating with other scientists to determine how Beelzebufo
is related to other frogs and to understand how and why they are on the
island of Madagascar. Fossil frog experts Susan Evans and Marc Jones of
the University College London agree that the new frog represents the
first known occurrence of a fossil group in Madagascar with living
relatives in South America.
Krause began finding
fragments of abnormally large frog bones in Madagascar, off the coast
of Africa, in 1993. They dated back to the late Cretaceous period,
roughly 70 million years ago, in an area where Krause also was finding
dinosaur and crocodile fossils. But only recently did Krause's team
assemble enough frog bones to piece together what the creature would
have looked like, and weighed.
The largest living
frog, the Goliath frog of West Africa, can reach 7 pounds. But Krause
teamed with fossil frog experts from University College London to
determine that Beelzebufo isn't related to other African frogs.
It
seems to be a relative of South American horned frogs, known
scientifically as Ceratophrys. Popular as pets, they're sometimes
called pacman frogs for their huge mouths.
But why
wasn’t Beelzebufo found in South America? "We're asking ourselves,
'What's a 'South American' frog doing half-way around the world, in
Madagascar?'" said Krause. “One possibility is that there was a land
connection between South America and Madagascar during [the Late
Cretaceous] period." Some researchers believe that Antarctica,
Madagascar, and South America may all have been connected at one time.
Visit my hubs
