Albino aquatic frogs

[Angus]

I have a question. ok! or a few.
i live in africa, mozambique and here there is no such thing as a pet shop. so all my xenopus frogs i found in the wild.
and i have never seen an albino xenopus frog.
so... my question is are they lab bared or just a one in a million incident?
i would really appreciate it if some one could have an answer for me. coz i have been keeping xenopus frogs for about 15 years and stall dont know. and i have googled it i dont know how many hoping to find an answer.
now that i found this fourm i'm suer i will find out.

thanks
Angus

[John]

Albinos occur in the wild but they are very rare. Apart from the fact that they are not camouflaged like their normal counterparts, they don't have the pigments to resist damage from ultraviolet light from the sun.

If your question is if they were created artificially, the answer is absolutely not. You could go your whole life and never find an albino in the wild.

[tgampper]

Hi Angus:

Welcome to Frog Forum. To answer your question about clawed frogs. Like John said, albinos are extremely rare in the wild. The only albinos available in the U.S. that I know of are lab bred and are Xenopus laevis (common platanna).

Mozambique has two species of Xenopus: X. laevis and X.muelleri. You can tell them apart by looking at their subocular tentacle (below the eye). Looking at the picture above, X.laevis is on the left, X. muelleri is on the right (the tentacle is much longer). The care is the same. Let us know if you have any questions!