This Ancient Giant Frog Had Powerful Jaws And Ate Small Dinosaurs

The ancient (and now extinct) frog known as the Beelzebufo had powerful jaws, ones far more powerful than ordinary frogs that exist today, and it feasted on creatures that included small dinosaurs and crocodiles. Such information comes from a new study analyzing the jaw strength of this extinct frog, which lived about 68 million years ago.

Unfortunately (or perhaps very fortunately), these giant frogs no longer exist, and so researchers had to figure out their approximate bite force by looking at present-days frogs; specifically, the Pacman frog from the Ceratophrys genus. This frog is small but has a powerful jaw capable of bites with about 6.6lbs of force.

Knowing that, the researchers estimated that larger horned frogs found in South America — ones with a head size closer to 10 cm — can bite with a force of about 500 newtons. One research explained that as feeling like having 13 gallons of water placed on the tip of your finger. Still, that pales in comparison to the estimated bite force of the extinct giant frogs.

Using that scaled estimation and what is known about the size of the ancient frogs, researchers estimated that the Beelzebufo may have had a bite force at a much higher 2200 newtons of force, or about 73 times that of the simple Pacman frog. This puts the giant frog in the same category as major predators including wolves.

This means — assuming the estimation is correct — that the giant frog would have feasted on things far larger than small reptiles and insects, likely including young and small dinosaurs as well as crocodiles.

SOURCE: Science Daily