Talk:Beelzebufo

Outcommented statement
"That it so closely resembles those relatives supports the theory that South America was connected to Madagascar, via land bridge, 40 million years more recently than the scientific consensus claims."

It is outright bullshit the way it is put. The "land bridge" would have been Antarctica, India and the Mascarene Plateau plateau combined. That makes the "land bridge" LARGER THAN THE WHOLE OF SOUTH AMERICA!

So Beelzebufo is entirely non-informative in this respect. Between ~100 and 90 million years ago one could walk from South America to Madagascar perhaps without having to cross as much as an inch of ocean, though this feat was impossible if you wanted to get from either Madagascar or South America to Africa. So there we have a pretty narrow time window, and what Lane says is pretty much right on the spot (though it's nothing very new) - in fact, having a proto-Pacman frog arrive say 95 mya on Madagascar and getting 'Beelzebufo 25 million years later on Madagascar as well as roughly similar pacman frogs in South America today fits "the scientific consensus" like a glove.

See also Sooglossidae and Nasikabatrachus to get the basic idea. Furthermore the ancestors of Platymantis vitiensis did certainly not get to Fiji via a land bridge, as Fiji is an independent microplate that was always surrounded by open ocean in the relevant time. Two eggs on a duck's feet would be all that it takes. And birds capable of such a feat certainly were around by then too (not that it likely happened that way for Beelzebufo. But it is technically a viable hypothesis until proven wrong). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 16:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It further stands to note that there was enough dry land in the western Indian Ocean as late as 45 million years ago to make the immigration of vanga, "Malagasy warbler" and a certain pigeon's ancestors from south(east)ern Asia an exercise in microcontinent-hopping rather than in ocean-crossing. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 16:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * (Note I inserted a "perhaps" above. Checking what I have around, it seems that time, place and mode of actual, final detaching of the India/Seychelles/Madagascar continent from Antarctica seems beset with a generous amount of uncertainty, not the least because the Deccan Traps megaeruptions obliterated much of the data. But even the most extreme scenario would require nothing more than the Kerguelen Plateau being at that time an archipelago like Indonesia today rather than a one-piece microcontinent.


 * You want the mysterious "land bridge"? Go to Port-aux-Français and odds arer you're actually standing right on it.) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 16:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Journal link?
The Associated Press source cited in the article says the frog's description was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. I can't find a link through Google Scholar. Does anyone have a link, or failing that, access to a hard copy they could cite? I don't trust mainstream-media science journalists and their editors to get everything right. --Ginkgo100talk 17:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * As always in such cases, try searching for beelzebufo and doi: 
 * The DOI might not be active yet. You can add it into the template (only the DOI ID not the preceding : ). I usualy put it into


 * This may have been missed by WP:Dinosaurs - its not a dino but they may well have the best experts around. You might check there, perhaps some1 has access to the original description already.


 * There is a seemingly rather good article on n-tv, but in German. And it's not gonna say anything new once we get a hold of the description. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 20:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It's in the "early edition" section: "A giant frog with South American affinities from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar" . I'd add stuff myself, but I'm at home and can't look at it. Circeus (talk) 21:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I just found the abstract here. Thanks! Circeus, if you have access to the journal (I don't), pretty please improve the article with it! --Ginkgo100talk 22:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Can't do anything until tomorrow, I'm afraid. Circeus (talk) 22:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

removed text on palm tree
I removed the following text:


 * This confirms suspicions brought about by the discovery of Tahina spectabilis, a palm tree with similar continental plate-spanning history.



There's nothing in the reference about this frog and I saw no "suspicions". You can infer from the reference that Tahina spectabilis corroborates that Madagascar was once connected to Asia (which, as far as I know, everybody believes). There's nothing there about South America, which is the connection Beelzebufo may help to date. &mdash;JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there actual proof?
I want to see actual evidence if this poorly discribed creature was alive during the time of the dinosaurs it was possibly big enough to swallow small or baby dinosaurs but the notion of such a creature seems just as ridiculous as bigfoot and crocodillians in sewers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crypto457 (talk • contribs) 20:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Please provide proof you actually exist first. Gondwanalanda — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.19.250 (talk) 11:41, 27 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Are you looking for information beyond the fossil specimens which are known and form which the genus/species was described?-- Kev min  § 21:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "actual evidence"? I mean, are you aware that they did find remains of this giant frog in Cretaceous strata in Madagascar, photographs and diagrams of which shown in the original reports, right?  You have tried looking at the reports, yes?--Mr Fink (talk) 22:30, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok I have read the report it seems to check out. Howevever if one procures an unaltered authentic photo of the fossilized specimen I might be convinced of its existence (Crypto457 (talk) 22:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC))
 * "There are plenty of photos in the paper. I'm not sure what "reports" you're reading, do you mean online news articles or something? MMartyniuk (talk) 01:47, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * So what you are implying is that the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America was duped and non of the peer-reviewers who read the article before it was published spotted that this was a fake? The genus and species description is based off the study of 75 specimens including a nearly complete skull.  That it has not been discredited by paleontologists in the 2 years since the type paper came out should indicate the authenticity of the genus. -- Kev  min  § 23:28, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Better yet, please cough up evidence that makes you think that this fossil species is fraudulent.--Mr Fink (talk) 02:17, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Look at the Ceratophyrs species alive today: the big ones will devour mice and sparrows. There's no reason to think why they didn't do the same 90+million years ago.
 * And here's a good report on the bruiser itself: Crimsonraptor (talk) 15:22, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It wasn't much larger than some living frogs, it's not like it's some kind of oversized monster. FunkMonk (talk) 12:25, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Lack of a taxonomic family
Judging from its name, I'd guess this species belongs in the family "Bufonidae". Of course, we'd need a source for that. Booger-mike (talk) 13:11, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * "Bufo" just means toad, so says little about the finer levels of classification, generic names aren't really reliable indicators of higher taxonomy (see for example Proceratosaurus). This paper finds it in Hyloidea. FunkMonk (talk) 13:32, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I was just making a guess, but isn't Hyloidea the superfamily that Bufonidae belongs to? I get your point though. Booger-mike (talk) 15:15, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That doesn't mean it belongs in Bufonidae, though, just that it is within the same even wider group. FunkMonk (talk) 16:08, 15 February 2024 (UTC)