African clawed frog
Xenopus laevis
— Where the name comes from
Xenopus is Greek for “strange foot”, from xénos, foreign, and poús, foot: the webbed, clawed hind feet, fit only for water. Laevis, Latin, “smooth”, from the skin. It is an entirely aquatic frog, and one of the most important laboratory animals in biology.
— Facts
- Group
- Amphibians · Amphibia
- Order
- Frogs and toads
- Habitat
- Ponds, pools and slow watercourses
- Range
- Sub-Saharan Africa; introduced to many countries
- Size
- 6–12 cm
- Diet
- Carnivore — aquatic invertebrates, small fish, scraps
- Lifespan
- 15 years and more
— Characteristics
- 01
It has no tongue: it pushes food into its mouth with its forelimbs.
- 02
It senses vibrations in the water through a lateral line, as fish do.
- 03
It survives months of drought by burying itself in a state of dormancy.
— What sets it apart
For much of the 20th century the Xenopus was half the world’s pregnancy test: inject a woman’s urine into a female frog and, if the woman was pregnant, the hormones present made the frog lay eggs within hours. Thousands of these amphibians were bred and shipped to hospitals. It was also among the first vertebrates cloned and the first amphibian sent into space: an African pond frog that ended up at the centre of 20th-century science.
