Giant Frog Fossil Unearthed

The researchers estimate the frog would have weighed in at about 9 lbs (4 kg) and would have been the size of a “squashed beach ball,” about 16 inches (40 cm) long, according to the team’s report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The report adds that it was “strikingly different” than frogs living today on the island of Madagascar, where it was found.

The frog, while unique in Madagascar, is “akin to the horned toads previously considered endemic to South America.”

Study coauthor Susan Evans, a biologist from University College London, explained that the team considers the frog a relative of today’s horned toads and speculated that, “If it shared the aggressive temperament and ‘sit-and-wait’ ambush tactics of [present-day] horned toads, it would have been a formidable predator on small animals.” The team guesses the frog would have eaten not only insects, but also possibly small vertebrates like lizards or even young dinosaurs. Of course, none of this is easy to judge from a fossil!

Most interesting about the discovery, however, is that the frog, while unique in Madagascar, is “akin to the horned toads previously considered endemic to South America.” This supports the idea that the South American land mass was once connected to the Indian and Madagascaran land masses, approximately 70 million years ago according to old-earth models.

Several Creation and Flood models also incorporate the idea of continental movement, albeit on a much more rapid timescale than evolutionists believe. Of particular interest is the work of John Baumgardner, a young-earth creationist with a PhD in geophysics from UCLA, who is one of the primary thinkers behind the “catastrophic plate tectonics” model that integrates the global Flood with rapid movement of continental plates. This explains how, for example, at least one member of the original frog/toad kind may have been fossilized by the Flood (presumably) in Madagascar, with most other similar frogs/toads having been swept off to the other side of the world.

Read more on catastrophic plate tectonics in NAB and our Get Answers: Plate Tectonics page.

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