The biology department uses this species in experiments, and having raised a few dozen tadpoles to adolescence, one of my friends (as a student in the lab) was offering them to people she knew. It's more of a froglet than a frog at the moment, but it'll get bigger eventually. It's a
Xenopus laevis, or African Clawed frog, and depending on its gender will either get about as big as my foot (at its fattest, which I'll proudly prevent, if its female), or about the size of my fist if its male (I have girl hands and feet, so smaller than yours unless you'r Liss). I named it, as currently gender indiscernable, Heqet--after an Egyptian goddess of fertility with a frog's head on a human body. The name is appropriate as culturally, frogs have had a long standing association with fertility in a number of societies, and because the
Xenopus laevis is often used in experiments concerning pregnancy. I thought of naming it Gamete (gender neutral) and Darwin, but finally settled on Heqet. It's a really cute animal, though I know once it gets bigger it'll get kind of (really) ugly. Nevertheless, I'm really excited to finally have a pet at school. The way my room is set up, I have a roommate, but we're adjoined in two rooms by a closed door in the mornings, and now I have something live to wake up to. It's cute swimming has helped me wake up the first time my alarm's gone off the past few days I've had it. The frog's currently swimming up to the surface to take breaths and pretend to sleep, floating with its snout sticking out of the water, before it starts to sink again, and has to paddle up to a renewed stable position. In just a moment, I'm going to try and feed it the rest of what I didn't give it earlier.
It looks like this now:
And will eventually look like this (female, female, female, male):