Amphibia · Anura
Xenopus laevisDaudin, 1802
African Clawed Frog
Photograph by Brian Gratwicke, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A nocturnal frog reaching 147 mm snout to vent.
Amphibia › Anura › Pipidae › Xenopus
- Grows to
- 147mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 30.3years
- Lives
- Aquatic, arboreal, terrestrial
Longer than 94% of all species in Pipidae anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 27 to 171 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
23 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- Increasing
as reported by the IUCN Red List
The animal itself
- Longest recorded life
- 30.3years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 147mm5.75 in
- Body mass · greatestmeasured
- 130g4.6 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 130g4.6 oz
snout-to-vent length, as this source reports for Anura
maximum adult body mass as recorded in the source
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Eats arthropods
- Yes
- Eats vertebrates
- Yes
- Eats plant matter
- Unknown
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Aquatic, arboreal, terrestrial
- Active in
- Dry and warm
a blank flag in this source means unrecorded, not absent
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- How the young develop
- Through a larval stage
- Gestation or incubation
- 2days
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2500–17,000eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Hatchling length
- 1–1.4mm0–0.1 in
- Age at first breeding · female
- 183days
- Mature at
- 2years
Naming and history
- Described by
- Daudin
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1802
Keeping one
- Water, at least 59 cm deep
- 74 × 59cm
Minimum, and for two animals — which is how the standard states it. Bigger is always better.
This animal lives in water, so the standard gives 5 × 4 body lengths of water and no land area, for two animals.
For each further animal, another 29 × 29 cm of water.
Swiss Tierschutzverordnung (TSchV), SR 455.1, Anhang 2, Tabelle 6 — legally binding minimum enclosure sizes for amphibians, given as multiples of total body length and stated for two animals.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length, which for a frog is its body length of 5.75 in (147 mm) — how this is worked out.
African Clawed Frog
Feeding
15kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 130 g, the heaviest recorded for African Clawed Frog — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
Morphs
1 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 1 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Albinismpeer reviewed
- High tyrosinase activity in albino Xenopus laevis oocytes. — J Embryol Exp Morphol 1976
- A comparative ultrastructural and physiological study on melanophores of wild-type and periodic albino mutants of Xenopus laevis. — Cell Tissue Res 1982
- Albinobreeder consensus
No melanin, leaving a pink or pale gold animal with unpigmented eyes.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Still living
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Diet
- — How it hunts
- — Average clutch
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Venomous
- — Fangs
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Limbs
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Red List criteria
- — Region
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Suborder
- — Infraorder
- — Subspecies
- — Type locality
- — Habitat
- — Mainland or island
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Pipidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Xenopus laevis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/xenopus-laevis
@misc{xenopus_laevis_2026,
title = {Xenopus laevis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/xenopus-laevis}
}Sources
- Oliveira, B.F. et al. (2017). AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4:170123. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.