Coleman Frog

Coleman Frog : Giant Amphibian of New Brunswick, Canada.

Physical description:

Like a huge bullfrog. Length, 27 inches. ( 68 cm ) Weight, 42 pounds. ( 19 kg )

Behaviour:

Consumes baked beans, June bugs, whiskey, and buttermilk toddies. Said to have been used to tow canoes and race against tomcats.

Distribution:

Killarney Lake, New Brunswick.

Present status:

Said to have been dynamited from the lake in 1885. On display for many years at Fred B. Coleman’s Barker House Hotel, the lone specimen was donated to the York-Sudbury Historical Museum, Fredericton, in 1959.

Possible explanations:

(1) Bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) only grow to 8 inches long. The record weight is 1 pound 4 ounces.

(2) A fake, made to advertise a patent medicine for relieving sore throats. A 1988 report by the Canadian Conservation Institute refers to the artifact as consisting of canvas, wax, and paint. A letter refers to the exhibit as “an amusing example of a colossal fake and deception.”

Sources:

Gerald L. Wood, The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats (Enfield, England: Guinness Superlatives, 1982), p. 119;
Joe Nickell, Real-Life X-Files (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), pp. 157–159.