It is well known that we like gigantic animals here, as well as teeny-weeny ones. In this case we have another example of a gigantic animal: Beelzebufo ampinga, the frog from Hell! Literally! Beelzebufo are breed in Level 4 of Hell for use in torturing souls. As you probably know, there are occasional escapes from Hell, where souls, demons, and horrible monsters escape and run rampant upon the world. The Jersey Devil, Mothman, Rush Limbaugh, all monsters from Hell that are still loose on the Earth this day. And now it is evident that some of the Beelzebufo escaped long ago and died, their fossilized remains being found by human scientists who quickly lump them into modern phylogenies. Which is probably for the better, because if the public was aware of the massive leak of nasty things from Hell, they would panic like there’s no tomorrow. Unless they are like me, and prepared to deal with minions of the darkness. If someone tries to sick these Beelzebufo on me, I’ll be dining on frog legs for a month! MuHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Giant Frog Jumps Continents, May Have Eaten Baby Dinosaurs
ScienceDaily (Feb. 19, 2008) — A giant frog fossil from Madagascar dubbed Beelzebufo or ‘the frog from Hell’ has been identified by scientists from UCL (University College London) and Stony Brook University, New York. The discovery of the 70 million year-old fossil frog, of a kind once thought unique to South America, lends weight to a new theory that Madagascar, India and South America were linked until late in the Age of Dinosaurs.
The new frog resembles living Horned toads (ceratophryines or ‘pac-man frogs’) in having a squat body, huge head and wide mouth. With a body length (not counting the legs) of up to 40 cm — longer than a rugby ball – and a weight of around four kilos (10 pounds), it is more than twice the size of its largest living relatives.
The fossil, published in the journal PNAS, enters the Malagasy history books alongside meat-eating dinosaurs, plant-eating crocodiles and giant snakes, all very different from the present day animals of Madagascar.
Professor Susan Evans of the UCL Department of Cell & Developmental Biology says: “This frog, a relative of today’s Horned toads, would have been the size of a slightly squashed beach-ball, with short legs and a big mouth. If it shared the aggressive temperament and ‘sit-and-wait’ ambush tactics of living Horned toads, it would have been a formidable predator on small animals. Its diet would most likely have consisted of insects and small vertebrates like lizards, but it’s not impossible that Beelzebufo might even have munched on hatchling or juvenile dinosaurs.
“Madagascar has a mainly endemic frog fauna whose history has generated intense debate, fueled by recent phylogenetic studies and the near absence of a fossil record. Our discovery of a frog strikingly different from today’s Madagascan frogs, and akin to the Horned toads previously considered endemic to South America, lends weight to the controversial paleobiogeographical model suggesting that Madagascar, the Indian subcontinent and South America were linked well into the Late Cretaceous. It also suggests that the initial spread of such beasts began earlier than that proposed by recent estimates.”
Beelzebufo ampinga vs. the largest known living Malagasy frog, Mantydactylus ampinga. Guess which one would be dinner?
