An ancient frog known as the Beelzebufo had power jaws, ones far more powerful than ordinary frogs that exist today, and it probably feasted on creatures that included small dinosaurs and crocodiles. Such information comes from a new study analyzing the jaw strength of this extinct frog.

Scientists claim a prehistoric amphibian named 'devil frog' could have feasted on dinosaurs 68 million years ago. Present day horned frogs like the Pacman frog found in South America — ones with a head size close to 10 cm — can bite with a force of about 500 newtons. One research explained that as feeling like having 50 litres of water placed on the tip of your finger.

Still, that pales in comparison to the estimated bite force of the extinct giant frogs such as Beelzebufo. Using a scaled estimation and what is know about the size of the ancient frogs, researchers estimated that the Beelzebufo may have had a bite force at a much higher 2200 newtons of force, or about 73 times that of the simple Pacman frog. This puts the giant frog in the same category as major predators including wolves or tigers.

"Unlike the vast majority of frogs, which have weak jaws and typically consume small prey, horned frogs ambush animals as large as themselves, including other frogs, snakes, and rodents," said Dr Marc Jones of the University of Adelaide's School of Biological Science.

His team measured the biting strength of modern frogs and extrapolated that out to frogs the size of Beelzebufo, which was 41cm long and weighed 4.5kg.

The research was published this week in the Scientific Reports journal.