Click to enlarge.
Platanna, (Xenopus laevis) also known as the clawed frog. These frogs spend their whole lives in water, true amphibians. It was very strange to see this little guy so far from permanent water, though we have had a lot of rain lately and there are pools of water all over. Adult frogs get quite big and are ferocious predators attacking any thing smaller than itself.
The clawed frog was used all over the world from about the 1940's as a reliable test for pregnancy. If the frog was injected with the urine of a pregnant woman, it spawned. Hospitals all over the world used to keep and breed these frogs.
Today these frogs still play an important part in medical research.
2 comments:
So this is perhaps a newly-hatched frog from one of those pools of water you have all over? It looks cute right now, but I looked it up on Wikipedia and it doesn't seem to stay cute.
K
I'll have to google it!
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