A frog the size of a bowling ball, with heavy armor and teeth, lived among dinosaurs millions of years ago — intimidating enough that scientists who unearthed its fossils dubbed the beast Beelzebufo, or Devil Toad.

But its size — 10 pounds and 16 inches long — isn't the only curiosity. Researchers discovered the creature's bones in Madagascar. Yet it seems to be a close relative of normal-sized frogs who today live half a world away in South America, challenging assumptions about ancient geography.

Paleontologist David Krause of Stony Brook University in New York made the discovery and is collaborating with other scientists to determine how Beelzebufo is related to other frogs and to understand how and why they are on the island of Madagascar. Fossil frog experts Susan Evans and Marc Jones of the University College London agree that the new frog represents the first known occurrence of a fossil group in Madagascar with living relatives in South America.

Krause began finding fragments of abnormally large frog bones in Madagascar, off the coast of Africa, in 1993. They dated back to the late Cretaceous period, roughly 70 million years ago, in an area where Krause also was finding dinosaur and crocodile fossils. But only recently did Krause's team assemble enough frog bones to piece together what the creature would have looked like, and weighed.

The largest living frog, the Goliath frog of West Africa, can reach 7 pounds. But Krause teamed with fossil frog experts from University College London to determine that Beelzebufo isn't related to other African frogs.

It seems to be a relative of South American horned frogs, known scientifically as Ceratophrys. Popular as pets, they're sometimes called pacman frogs for their huge mouths.

But why wasn’t Beelzebufo found in South America? "We're asking ourselves, 'What's a 'South American' frog doing half-way around the world, in Madagascar?'" said Krause. “One possibility is that there was a land connection between South America and Madagascar during [the Late Cretaceous] period." Some researchers believe that Antarctica, Madagascar, and South America may all have been connected at one time.