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"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)
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. -- Ginkgo100 talk 17:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed the following text:
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. — JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
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)
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))
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)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Beelzebufo article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | A fact from Beelzebufo appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 21 February 2008, and was viewed approximately 20,100 times (
disclaimer) (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"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)
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. -- Ginkgo100 talk 17:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed the following text:
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. — JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
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)
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))
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)