Alot of people say the african clawed frogs don't care about other living things in the same tank. Here is my story to prove that wrong.


I used to have an african clawed frog and an albino one. We had them both a long time. Well...the one that was not albino overate and its stomach actually burst and it died(of course)...(sorry that was a bit graphic). After that the albino frog wouldn't eat and would only move a little. He missed the other frog.

After a while(we had trouble finding one) we put a new frog in the tank and he came 'back to life'!

What do you think?

its hard to say wether or not animals actually "care" about the other things they live with.

what i "think" is that your frog that lived had mental stimulation from the frog he/she was housed with. once the other frog died, he had no mental stimulation, therefore causing him/her to be sluggish and inactive.

i mean sure, its possible that the frog cares about the frog that died, but there is no way to actually know. all that we really "know" is that your frog is active with a companion, and inactive without one. theres no way to explain what is really going on.

Actually when we got the new frog he was never as active as he was with his "companion". After all, they lived with each other for a long time...

im not saying that your wrong. im just saying that there is no way to really know.

When you say that African Clawed Frogs Do Have "feelings" I think about other species. I think that when you first got your frog it was alone, when the animal is alone it has no other animals to play and communicate with, so whenthe other forg died he had nothing to do. It could just do everything by itself. I don't think it because of it's feelings that it reacted that way. All animals act according to their instincts.

When an animal's environment changes, the animal will react and respond.

You frog knows very well that the other frog is missing and is no longer there and is reacting. He may react the same way if you were to forget to turn his UVB lamp on one day or rearanged his tank or got him a new water dish. It may not even be because the frog itself is gone, but rather because his mental stimulation has disappeared.

There are several animals that are social enough to become depressed or upset when a companion dies. But I do not believe that a frog has the mental capacity to have these "feelings". Only animals that are relatively high on the intelligence scale are capable of that....Animals like parrots, horses and elephants.

When the first frog died, the other one did not eat until we got a new frogs.
Since some of you are saying that they don't have "feelings" what about the not eating thing?

read what sugarbird said, she states an answer to your question quite clearly.

my african clawed frog pollywog died last night. i dont know what i did wrong!

did you test the water? is he/she in a well filtered system?

my paretns arent into the whole, pet thing. i have to get by with what i can. the filter was in working order, and i changed the water as usual. then the next day he looked yellow, and died.

All animals have feelings...

yeah...we know.