WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.

The discovery, led by paleontologist David Krause at New York's Stony Brook University, was published Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

``This frog, if it has the same habits as its living relatives in South America, was quite voracious,'' Krause said. ``It's even conceivable that it could have taken down some hatchling dinosaurs.''

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.

Like those modern frogs, Beelzebufo had a wide mouth and powerful jaws, plus teeth. Skull bones were extremely thick, with ridges and grooves characteristic of some type of armor or protective shield.

The name comes from the Greek word for devil, Beelzebub, and Latin for toad, bufo (pronounced boo-foe).

The family link raises a paleontology puzzle: Standard theory for how the continents drifted apart show what is now Madagascar would have been long separated by ocean from South America during Beelzebufo's time. And frogs can't survive long in salt water, Krause noted.

He contends the giant frog provides evidence for competing theories that some bridge still connected the land masses that late in time, perhaps via an Antarctica that was much warmer than today.

Scientists have paved way for helping humans live longer and healthier by creating baker's yeast capable of living up to 800 yeast years without apparent side effects.

Since yeast's genes are similar to humans', the findings signify that even humans can have a manifold life extension.

The study, led by Valter Longo of the University of Southern California, achieved the important discovery through a combination of dietary and genetic changes.

"We're setting the foundation for reprogramming healthy life," Longo said.

In the study, the researchers put baker's yeast on a calorie-restricted diet and knocked out two genes, RAS2 and SCH9 that promote aging in yeast and cancer in humans.

"We got a 10-fold life span extension that is, I think, the longest one that has ever been achieved in any organism," Longo said.

Anna McCormick, chief of the genetics and cell biology branch at the National Institute on Aging and Longo's program officer said: "I would say 10-fold is pretty significant."

In the study, the scientists identified a major overlap between the genes previously implicated in life span regulation for yeast and mammals and those involved in life span extension under calorie restriction.

"We identified three transcription factors that are very important for the effect of calorie restriction, but at the same time, we also showed that it's not enough because even without these transcription factors, calorie restriction can still extend life span a little bit," Longo said.

"So that means that we've identified a lot of the key players in the calorie restriction effect but not all of them," he added.

Calorie restriction, in practice, controlled starvation, has long been shown to reduce disease and extend life span in species from yeast to mice.

Scientists contemplate that a nutrient shortage kicks organisms into a maintenance mode, enabling them to re-direct energy from growth and reproduction into anti-aging systems until the time they can feed and breed again.