Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Xenopus
Summary
Xenopus (ˈzɛnəpəs) (Gk., ξενος, xenos=strange, πους, pous=foot, commonly known as the clawed frog) is a genus of highly aquatic frogs native to sub-Saharan Africa. Twenty species are currently described within it. The two best-known species of this genus are Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis, which are commonly studied as model organisms for developmental biology, cell biology, toxicology, neuroscience and for modelling human disease and birth defects.
The genus is also known for its polyploidy, with some species having up to 12 sets of chromosomes.
Xenopus laevis is a rather inactive creature. It is incredibly hardy and can live up to 15 years. At times the ponds that Xenopus laevis is found in dry up, compelling it, in the dry season, to burrow into the mud, leaving a tunnel for air. It may lie dormant for up to a year. If the pond dries up in the rainy season, Xenopus laevis may migrate long distances to another pond, maintaining hydration by the rains. It is an adept swimmer, swimming in all directions with ease. It is barely able to hop, but it is able to crawl. It spends most of its time underwater and comes to surface to breathe. Respiration is predominantly through its well developed lungs; there is little cutaneous respiration.
All species of Xenopus have flattened, somewhat egg-shaped and streamlined bodies, and very slippery skin (because of a protective mucus covering). The frog's skin is smooth, but with a lateral line sensory organ that has a stitch-like appearance. The frogs are all excellent swimmers and have powerful, fully webbed toes, though the fingers lack webbing. Three of the toes on each foot have conspicuous black claws.
The frog's eyes are on top of the head, looking upwards. The pupils are circular. They have no moveable eyelids, tongues (rather it is completely attached to the floor of the mouth) or eardrums (similarly to Pipa pipa, the common Suriname toad).
Unlike most amphibians, they have no haptoglobin in their blood.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.