‘Toad’ ally freaky for frogs – The Common Platana (Xenopus laevis)
This column features everything you need to know about frogs. The Common Platana (Xenopus laevis) are bizarre-looking creatures, which can’t really be confused for any other species.
THE Common Platanna (Xenopus laevis), also known as the African Clawed Frog, has got to be one of the strangest frog species in our area, but an interesting one at that.
What do they look like?
They’re bizarre-looking creatures, which can’t really be confused with any other species. Their eyes are situated on top of their head, as opposed to on the sides as they spend their life in water, hunting near the surface.
They have large back legs, with webbed feet. The toes on their back feet have short claws making them one of the few, if not the only frog species with claws on Earth.
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Their front limbs are very small, and are mostly used for shoving their prey into their mouth. They have very smooth skin.
Are they poisonous? No.
What call do they make?
I spend a lot of time searching for frogs, and see plenty of Platannas, yet I have never heard them calling in the wild. This will be because they call underwater.
However, when I have kept them overnight in display tanks, for educational purposes, I have heard them. They make a low-pitched rattling sound. When I first heard it, I thought there was something wrong with the alarm system or fridge.
Where do they live?
Usually still bodies of water such as ponds and dams. They may be found hopping on land during heavy rains. During rain, they move from one body of water to the next. They remain submerged at the bottom during the day, and float to the surface at night, hoping to catch anything smaller than them that drops in or swims past.
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Did you know?
This is going to freak you out. This frog was used globally as a pregnancy test, many years ago. The urine of a suspected pregnant woman would be injected into the frog. If it laid eggs, it was a sign the woman was indeed pregnant.
This frog is believed to be one of the causes of the chytrid fungus, a disease wiping out frogs across the globe, as it was shipped across the world. It is immune to this disease.
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