humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare

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___ *GOLF DRIVE*
___ *DEVIL FROG*
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http://tinyurl.com/33gbj7
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Ancient *DEVIL FROG* may have eaten baby dinosaurs
Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:04pm EST
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - <ever to have hopped on Earth. Scientists on Monday announced the
discovery in northwestern Madagascar of a bulky amphibian dubbed the
"devil frog" that lived 65 million to 70 million years ago and was so
nasty it may have eaten newborn dinosaurs. This brute was larger than
any frog living today and may be the biggest frog ever to have
existed, according to paleontologist David Krause of Stony Brook
University in Stony Brook, New York, one of the scientists who found
the remains. Its name, Beelzebufo ampinga, came from Beelzebub, the
Greek for devil, and bufo -- Latin for toad. Ampinga means "shield,"
named for an armor-like part of its anatomy. Beelzebufo (pronounced
bee-el-zeh-BOOF-oh) was 16 inches
long and weighed an estimated 10 pounds (4.5 kg). It was powerfully
built and possessed a very wide mouth and powerful jaws. It probably
didn't dine daintily. "It's not outside the realm of possibility that
Beelzebufo took down lizards and mammals and smaller frogs, and even
-- considering its size -- possibly hatchling dinosaurs," Krause said
in a telephone interview. It would have been quite mean," added
paleontologist Susan Evans of University College London, another of
the scientists. Even though it lived far away, Beelzebufo appears to
be closely related to a group of frogs that live today in South
America, the scientists said. They are nicknamed "Pac-Man" frogs due
to their huge mouths. Some have little horns on their heads, and the
scientists think Beelzebufo also may have had horns -- a fitting touch
for the "devil frog." Beelzebufo was bigger than any of its South
American kin or any other living frog -- "as if it was on steroids,"
Krause said. The largest one today is the goliath frog of West Africa,
up to 12.5 inches long and 7.2 pounds (3.3 kg). The presence of
Beelzebufo in Madagascar and its modern relatives in South America is
the latest sign a long-lost land bridge once may have linked
Madagascar to Antarctica -- much warmer then -- and South America, the
scientists said. That would have let animals move overland among those
land masses. Fossils have been found of other animals in Madagascar
from Beelzebufo's time similar to South American ones. The first frogs
appeared about 180 million years ago, and their basic body plan has
remained unchanged. Beelzebufo lived during the Cretaceous Period at
the end of the age of dinosaurs, which went extinct along with many
other types of animals 65 million years ago when a huge space rock
clobbered Earth. Beelzebufo did not live an aquatic lifestyle, hopping
among lily pads, the scientists said. Instead, it lived in a semi-arid
environment and may have hunted like its modern-day relatives, which
camouflage themselves and jump out at prey. Its first fragmentary
fossils were found in 1993, and the scientists have since assembled
enough fragments to piece its remains together like a jigsaw puzzle,
Krause said. While it was the king of frogs, Beelzebufo is not the
largest amphibian ever to have lived. Many reached truly astounding
dimensions, such as the crocodile-like Prionosuchus that grew to an
estimated 30 feet during the Permian Period, which ended about 250
million years ago.>>
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Art Neuendorffer