BEIJING, Feb. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Scientists in Madagascar have unearthed a fossil of what might have been the biggest, baddest, fattest, most frightening frog that ever hopped on Earth's surface.

    Dating from Cretaceous Period about 65 million to 70 million years ago, Beelzebufo ampinga, or "devil frog," sported an armored head and a huge 16-inch body, 3.5 inches longer than the goliath frog of West Africa, the largest known living frog.

    Scientists gave the frog its name because of its frightening apperance, and its predatory nature led them to call it "the frog from hell," said team leader David Krause, a paleontologist at Sony Brook University.

    "They are just these big round blobs, basically all mouth and stomach," Krause told LiveScience. "They were sit-and-wait, ambush predators."

    They didn't have very long legs, so they probably didn't hop around much. It was more likely they would let prey come to them. The scientists think they feasted on smaller frogs, lizards and mice.

    "When you consider its size, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that it could have consumed some hatchling dinosaurs," Krause said. The largest living frog on Madagascar today, at just over 4 inches long, "would have been a nice hors d'oeuvre for Beelzebufo."

    Krause collaborated with frog experts Susan Evans Marc Jones track down the ancient frog's closest living relatives. They were surprised to discover that Beelzebufo is very closely related to a family of modern frogs living in South America called Ceratophrys, or "pac-man" frogs, because of their huge mouths.

    The scientists previously suspected a land bridge between Madagascar and South America because they found closely related fossils of Cretaceous animals, including dinosaurs, in both places. The new discovery supports this hypothesis by providing the first evidence of a creature that once lived in Madagascar that has living relatives in South America.

    (Agencies)