Giant frogs capable of eating dinosaurs

According to a new discovery, a huge, extinct frog has been discovered that was capable enough of eating small dinosaurs.

The giant, beach-ball sized frog known as ‘Beelzebufo ampinga’ lived around 70 million years ago and was probably the largest frog ever existed. Being similar to the prevailing ‘Ceratophrys’ frogs (Pacman frogs), scientists made use of those similar traits to find out their characteristics.

Publishing their study in Scientific Reports, the researchers analyzed the bite force of the horned Pacman frogs which were like the extinct giant frogs, which is as strong as that of a wolf or a female tiger, as per Daily Mail.

The lead author Dr. Marc Jones explained, “Unlike the vast majority of frogs which have weak jaws and typically consume small prey, horned frogs ambush animals as large as themselves – including other frogs, snakes, and rodents. And their powerful jaws play a critical role in grabbing and subduing the prey.”

According to Science Alert, a scaling experiment was conducted by using a custom-made force transducer and two plates covered with leather. When the frog bites the plates, they act as scales and can exactly sense the force of the bite.

It was deduced from the experiment that the bite force of the Beelzebufo frog would have been up to 2200 Newton, similar to wolves or tigresses. “At this bite force, Beelzebufo would have been capable of subduing the small and juvenile dinosaurs that shared its environment,” claimed Dr Jones.

“The bite of a large Beelzebufo would have been remarkable, definitely not something I would want to experience firsthand,” according to the co-author Dr. Kristopher Lappin.