The clear winner this week is Beelzebufo, "perhaps the largest frog ever to exist," according to the National Science Foundation. It lived 65 to 70 million years ago on what is now Madagascar and was "about the size of a beach ball." And with "an extremely wide mouth and powerful jaws," you would not have wanted to try and chase him around the pond.
Apart from the fact that the discovery may put the landmasses of Madagascar, India, and South America together as one in that time period, and apart from the titillating observation that Beelzebufo was likely "capable of killing lizards and other small vertebrates, perhaps even hatchling dinosaurs," most interesting are the monikers reporters have come up with for the big toad: "giant fossil frog from hell"; "Frogzilla"; "armored frog from hell"; and the tamer just plain "frog from hell". Well, the scientists that discovered the big bastard started it--their Latin name for it, Beelzebufo, means "devil frog".
The runners up this week include two new species of the fat, funny-shaped wobbegong (funny-named I might add) shark near Australia, and whatever's on three ships recently "returned from the Southern Ocean, their decks overflowing with a vast array of ocean life including a number of previously unknown species collected from the cold waters near the East Antarctic land mass." (Video here.)
Pic: SUNY-Stony Brook
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