STL Science Center

STL Science Center

19 September 2015

It Eats Everything

Most likely because Beelzebufo is so enormous, again, for a frog, most of the illustrations that exist of the fossilized amphibian are depictions of the animal eating some kind of large lizard or a very small dinosaur. Many of the illustrations also make the frog appear very similar to a horned frog or a pacman frog (both general common names belong within the genus Ceratophrys). This is probably an echo of living species that artists have to draw from. The skeletal elements are also somewhat similar to the large frogs that are extant and, a good portion of which, roam South America now. Regardless, at 40 cm (16 in) Beelzebufo was quite capable of eating small and large lizards, mammals, and even hatchling dinosaurs as they scampered through the bushes. Anatomically this frog was a frog, so the snatching and eating of its prey was probably, as in many of the enormous extant frogs, pursued through ambush and large gulping instead of using a sticky tongue like some other extant frogs.

No comments:

Post a Comment