February 19, 2008
The illustration depicts the ancient frog species Beelzebufo, or “devil frog,” staring down what the National Geographic says is the largest frog species living in Madagascar today. Actually, it looks more like a common toad to me. Today, the largest living Madagascar frog is just 4 in (10 cm) long. The world’s largest frog is the African Goliath frog (Conraua goliath) from central Africa: 13 in (33 cm) in body length (legs excluded), and weighs up to 7 lb (3 kg).
A pencil is included for scale as apparently pencils did not exist 70 million years ago.
Evidence of a giant frog found in Madagascar has led researchers to speculate that an ancient land bridge may have connected the island off southern Africa with South America.
Beelzebufo, or the “devil frog,” was 16-inch (40 cm) long and probably weighed around 5 kg (11 lb)! The fossil frog lived 65 million to 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, during the last 5 million years of dinosaur existence, according to researchers from the University of California Los Angeles and Stony Brook University in New York.
It’s size rivalling a beach ball, the frog was a fierce predator, capable of eating small animals and perhaps even dinosaurs that had just hatched.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Filed under Breaking News, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Fossil Finds