That Reptile Blog – Reptile, Amphibian and Exotic Pet Care and Information

Providing a wide variety of live foods is one of the main stumbling blocks to keeping most frogs healthy in captivity.  African Clawed Frogs (Xenopus laevis, and several related species), however, take non-living foods (i.e. carrion) in the wild, and therefore are quite easy to accommodate in captivity.  Today I’d like to highlight two different diets that have enabled some of my African Clawed Frogs to reach 20+ years of age, and to breed as well.

Note: Dwarf African Frogs, Hymenochirus spp., require an entirely different diet comprised of small live invertebrates.  Please see this article for details.  Another relative, the bizarre, skin-brooding Surinam Toad, Pipa pipa, is also a live food specialist (please see photo and this article. Read More »

The African Clawed Frog (Xenopus laevis) is a very common pet and lab animal and yet holds many surprises for those willing to look – it has no tongue, produces skin secretions that have yielded valuable medicines, was once used by the millions to detect pregnancy and thrives as an invading species in habitats ranging from Texas cattle ponds to brackish marshes in England… and their tadpoles feed by filtering organic material from the water. Read More »