Water debate

[DVirginiana]

To answer your question about whether the two species are really that physically different: Yes.
Pacman frogs have much lower muscle mass, shorter hind legs, and are in general not as hardy as Pyxies. Remember, in the wild, African Bullfrog males will actually chase and attack large animals to keep them from disturbing their eggs, and even sometimes have to go overland a pretty good distance to find suitable mating pools. The muscles that make this possible are what make them better swimmers than pacmans. Pacmans in the wild spend the majority of their time in moist burrows, and never have to travel very far even to get to mating pools since they live in rainforests. There is nothing to say that the pac in the photo you posted was 1) in the wild and 2) there for some reason other than breeding. As for the zoo picture... Well, zoos often display animals in aesthetically pleasing setups during visiting hours. If they gave the pac a coco-fiber setup no one would ever see much but the eyes! Also, the fact that there are so many small rocks in with a large healthy pac makes me think that it is probably removed to a different setup for feeding and after zoo hours. They can do this by having a sliding door at the back of the viewing setup so that the animal only has to move a short distance to get to its night-time, stress-free enclosure and doesn't stress it out like actually changing locations would. Not saying that that's for sure what they're doing there, but it seems likely...

My pac soaks in his water far less now that I've cling-wrapped part of his enclosure top to keep humidity in. If you had a pac that was spending all its time soaking and almost none burrowing, I would wonder if the ambient humidity might have been a bit too low for it.