68 million years ago there was a monumental frog the size of an inflatable beach ball with a bite so powerful that it was capable of hunting and devouring small dinosaurs back in the Late Cretaceous . It is Beelzebufo ampinga and, without a doubt, it is the largest frog that is known so far, according to the study published by a team of scientists from the California Polytechnic State University in Pomona (California) and the University from Adelaide (Australia) in Scientific Reports.
Using its similarities to today’s Ceratophrys frogs, scientists have detailed the past of this bulky amphibian, which was much larger than any frog we can see today.
Also known as a ‘devil frog’, Beelzebufo ampinga was over 40 centimeters long and weighed around 4.5 kilograms. She was clad in powerful armor (ampinga) and a broad, herculean jaw. Scientists believe it must have been the largest frog ever seen.
Similar to today’s Ceratophrys frogs (commonly known as Pac-Man frogs because of their round body and wide mouth, similar to the character in the well-known video game), experts used their knowledge to determine the force of the bite of the ancient Beelzebufo.
They used a custom-made force transducer with two leather-covered plates . When the frog bites into the plates, the force of the bite can be accurately detected.
A modern Ceratophrys frog, with a head width of 4.5 centimeters, has a bite force of 30 Newtons, or approximately 3 kilograms. This allows the frog, once it has captured its prey with its sticky tongue, to firmly secure the moving food between its powerful jaws, squeezing it and making it impossible for it to escape.
“Unlike the vast majority of frogs that have weak jaws and routinely 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 grasping and dominate the prey “, comments Marc Jones, co-author of the work.
The scaling method used to determine the bite force of these frogs, matching bite force to body and head size, is also consistent with the results found for other animals, including fish, reptiles, and rodents.
Thus, by extrapolating the bite force results to the size of Beelzebufo’s mouth, which is about 15.4 centimeters wide, the scientists identified a bite force of up to 2,200 Newtons (about 224 kg). That is, the force of its bite would be comparable to that of current bull turtles.
“With this bite force, Beelzebufo would have been able to subdue the small, juvenile dinosaurs that shared its environment, ” Jones explains.
Referencia: A. Kristopher Lappin et al. Bite force in the horned frog (Ceratophrys cranwelli) with implications for extinct giant frogs, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-11968-6
