Beelzebufo: This gigantic devil frog ate dinosaurs 68 million years ago in Madagascar

It may sound bizarre but a beach-sized, massive frog lived on Earth 70-million-years-ago and was capable of eating dinosaurs, scientists have discovered.

The largest frog to have ever lived is named Beelzebufo ampinga. However, it was similar to the modern Ceratophrys frogs. Using those similarities, scientists have made this fascinating discovery.

The modern Ceratophrys frogs are also known as Pacman frogs for their round bodies. These frogs have comically large mouths sit quietly, wait and snap at anything that passes them.

The researchers have studied these Ceratophrys frog to determine the bite force of Beelzebufo. These frogs made custom-made transducer force.

The Ceratophrys frog with the head width of 4.5-centimetre has a bite force of 30 Newtons. Which means after the frog captures its prey with its sticky tongue to secure the wriggling food between its mighty jaws.

Researcher Marc Jones of the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum said, “Vast majority of frogs which have weak jaws and consume small prey. Horned frogs ambushed animals as large as themselves including frogs, snakes and rodents.”

He added, “The frogs' powerful jaws play a critical role in grabbing and subduing the prey.”

Measuring the bite force up for frogs with mouths around 10 centimeters get the force of 50 kilograms. There are horned size frogs found in South America which have bite force consistent with turtles, crocodilians and predatory mammals of the same mouth size.

The researching team used it to scale the bite force up for the mouth size of Beelzebufo, around 15.4 centimeters wide which has bite force of 224 kilograms.  

Jones added that Beelzebufo with 224 kilograms of bite force would have been capable of eating small, juvenile dinosaurs that share the environment with it.